


the little war

by orphan_account



Category: Sharpe - All Media Types
Genre: Backstory, Canon Backstory, F/M, Female Protagonist, Gapfillerpalooza, Gen, Guerilla Warfare, Historical, Missing Scene, Napoleonic Wars, POV Female Character, Pregnancy, Rape, Rape Recovery, Roman Catholicism, Spain, Unplanned Pregnancy, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:24:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The term <i>guerilla</i> means "little war" in Spanish and was used within the English language as early as 1809. The use of the diminutive evokes the differences in number, scale, and scope between the guerrilla army and the formal, professional army of the state." (Wikipedia, "Guerilla Warfare") </p><p>When French soldiers raid her hometown in the summer of 1808, Teresa Moreno's life is destroyed in one single day. Building a new life for herself takes much longer and happens just as unexpectedly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the little war

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cythraul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cythraul/gifts).



> 1) This is a **Yuletide treat for Cythraul**. However, the story developed from the original prompt, ran away with me, veered off in unexpected directions, and turned into the monster-that-ate-the-Iberian-Peninsula. There is still something about Teresa among the partisans in here, which fits the original request. Thus I hope it will not disappoint entirely. Happy Yuletide! 
> 
> 2) **Content notes:** In case that any readers are not familiar with canon or don't want to ruin the holiday mood, I should mention a few of the themes that this fic contains. It deals with (off-stage) rape, the psychological fallout of sexual violence, physical abuse, unplanned pregnancy, war crimes, and the general violence that comes with living in an early 19th-century warzone. 
> 
> (Also, gratuitous drunkenness, references to sexuality, far too much folk Catholicism, handwaving of Iberian geography, and a bit of profanity if you speak Spanish.) 
> 
> Needless to say, the depiction of historical unpleasantness and contemporaneous attitudes does not equal endorsement. 
> 
> 3) **A note on canon** : This fleshes out the TV version of Teresa Moreno, who has quite a different backstory from the same character in Bernard Cornwell's series. The fic spans the time between 1808 and 1811, i.e. from her pre-series backstory to the gap between _Sharpe's Eagle_ and _Sharpe's Company_. I have only borrowed a couple details from the books. Also, while I wanted to show more of Teresa's background and the Spanish side of the Peninsular War, don't go looking for historical accuracy here. (Not that anyone gets fannish about _Sharpe_ for the historical accuracy in the first place... :D) 
> 
> 4) I cannot thank lots of awesome people enough for all their support and hand-holding. **Special kudos** to the members of the best LJ writing community ever (aka Picowrimo) as well as to the fabulous La Reine Noire, who really went above and beyond the call of duty in encouraging me. My online friends have patiently put up with several Yuletide Panic Posts (TM), and even a number of RL folks had to listen to me whining about the Napoleonic Wars for about six weeks. Without them, this would have been my personal Waterloo, and not as seen from Wellington's side. 
> 
> In the unlikely case you read this: I love you all! <3

**_i. Prologue_**

„You will never forget the face of the first man you fall in love with,“ María used to say. But that was in another country, or so it seemed sometimes. 

These words belonged to a Spain where there was plenty of talk about war, war and politics, but the fighting mysteriously stopped off Spanish soil, or outside the world of the Moreno sisters. Certainly, their neighbours wept for some cousin from Cadíz, killed upon the _San Juan_ , at Trafalgar. And one of their tutors was far too Frenchified: their geography lessons involved pinning needles into maps, from Arcola and Abukir over Marengo, Ulm, and Austerlitz to Jena and Tilsit. 

That what was war meant to them: tiny metal pins stabbed into their father’s precious atlases, even with troops from France and Portugal and Spain across the border. Politics was but talk at their mother’s dinner table. Although none of their guests had been to court, they dropped the name of statesmen, royals, and emperors with such familiarity as though the Prime Minister were a landed nobleman from Extremadura, His Most Catholic Majesty the King and the Prince of Asturias an _alcalde_ and his son, and Napoleon himself a distant acquaintance from Paris. 

María became invariably bored with these conversations. As soon as the men started discussing treaties, alliances, and factions, the considerable charms of the _señoritas_ de Moreno ceased to exist. Teresa would amuse herself with venturing to give an opinion every now and then. 

Some gallants considered a discourse on _desamortización_ a daring version of mild flirtation, while others failed to hide their disdain for her audacity. She could not decide which reaction delighted her more, behind her curt nods and wry remarks. But it appeared unlikely that she was destined to fall in love with any visitor. Nor did she grow attached to one of the young scholars she met on her travels, although their brilliant smiles were flattering and their twinkling eyes most agreeable.

That Spain of dinner conversations, of dashing officers and learned students making love to two eligible women, was no more. It died in Medina de Rio Seco, together with Teresa’s parents. After what the French soldiers did to her and her sister, neither of them would fall in love. Even if a man would have them, she doubted a husband could make them feel safe. 

María took the veil soon after: the only man’s face she saw would be that of a visiting priest in her cloisters. Perhaps she would behold the Saviour Himself in a vision, as a newly-wed bride of Christ, and He would comfort her. Teresa did not have much faith in this promise of solace: where had He been as the French pillagers routed the inhabitants of Medina’s nunneries in a desecrated church and began with the rapes? Had He looked the other way that day, ignoring His brides and their pleas for mercy? 

Teresa did not share her sister’s gentleness and piety. She’d always been the older one, the bolder one, at times irreverent and outspoken to the point where _papá_ affectionately called her a “little cynic”. Even she had not expected, though, that she was to kill a man one day. First one, then two, then three, half a dozen, and too many to count, but she would not forget the face of the first man whose life she took. 

**_ii. Medina de Rio Seco – Sahagún – Torrecastro: July 1808 – May 1809_**

The once peaceful world of the Moreno sisters had shrunk to a cellar room, damp and mouldy, with an aroma of rotten potatoes and manure from the champignon beds. Outside, the din had died down. It was eerily quiet below, apart from the occasional sob that interrupted María’s silent weeping. 

Teresa glanced at her sister, who lay in a corner, making herself as small as possible. Something stirred in her chest, the desire to huddle close and comfort her, as if they were little girls and María crawled into her bed, afraid of the _brujas_ or the _lobisomem_ , even though their parents scoffed on peasant superstitions. Unlike witches and wolf-men, the French soldiers were real, but they behaved no better than beasts or devils. María shied away from Teresa’s innocent touch. 

Hopefully, her sister would fall asleep soon, passing out from drink and too little to eat. It was hard to tell how long they’d been hiding, with last year’s mealy apples and a few bottles of sour wine for sustenance. Teresa’s head throbbed, and her stomach cramped with hunger pains. 

When Maria was sleeping and darkness fell, she would venture above and look if the troops had left anything in the pantry, or if their neighbours had returned. She would not be afraid, although she wanted to cower in a corner, too, or creep into bed, pull up the covers, and sleep for a year. Teresa fumbled for an empty wine bottle and smashed it on the wall. Her sister whimpered. 

“It’s only me,” she said and grabbed the jagged bottleneck. It was a pitiful weapon against a musket or a cavalry sword, but it would serve. “Only me, and this old bottle.” 

María moaned again, her form stiffening with fear, and Teresa heard it, too: there were steps above, heavy steps and men’s voices in the corridor that led to the staircase. She gestured at her sister to duck behind the potato sacks, held on to the bottle, and waited. 

“Don César? Doña Antonia?” a rough voice called, followed by another man’s shouting: “Teresa? María? Anyone here?” 

The Frenchmen hadn’t known their names, nor had they cared. They had treated them all like things. Carefully, with agonizing slowness, Teresa opened the cellar door. She thrust out her makeshift weapon before she peered round the doorframe. Someone cursed, then groaned with relief. 

“Thank God – you’re alive,” Don Blas Vivar breathed. Stefano, the old groom from their landed estate, crossed himself thrice. The men seemed overjoyed to see them, but Teresa could not share their joy. The soreness in her body and the dull anger in her heart left no room for that. 

Absent-mindedly, she listened to their garbled explanations: Stefano had waited out the end of the fighting before he snuck into the city, and Major Vivar set out to enquire after his friends as soon as he heard about the sack of Medina. Teresa only wanted to scream that they hadn’t been there. It was unfair, she well knew that: the French would have slain Stefano on the spot, with his rheumatism and his bad leg. Perhaps the major would have fought off some of them, but they’d have killed him eventually, like they stabbed her fa—

“Is it safe?” Teresa croaked. “María will not go upstairs unless it is safe.” 

Don Blas nodded. “Medina’s in a terrible state, but the commander has restored order.” 

Teresa laughed. Restored order. As if you could restore anything that was destroyed when the French came. Laughter, loud and hoarse and dry, wrecked her body in spasms until she nearly fainted from the convulsions. Or maybe that was the hunger and her nerves. The two would-be rescuers looked at her strangely. If Teresa hadn’t known better, she’d have thought that they were scared. 

She drew her sister from the floor and waited patiently while Maria inched closer to the open door. Stefano stretched out his arms to support the shaking girl, but Teresa shook her head. “Don’t touch her. She will only scream. She doesn’t speak, but she screams.” 

“ _¡Madre de Dios!_ ” the major said as they emerged into the sunlit world aboveground and he took in their ragged appearance: ripped dresses, bruised cheeks and wrists, clods of earth in their hair, dried blood on Teresa’s hands. “What have they done to you?” 

Teresa did not answer. Whenever she tried to think of the French looters, there was a blank in her mind, like a nightmare so terrible you dare not remember it, or a sudden loss of vision, as if they had gouged out her eyes, and not her father’s. 

“And where – where are your parents?” he continued, his words so soft she strained to understand him. “We searched the house, but couldn’t find their bo – could not find them.” 

“In the shed, behind the oxcart,” Teresa said. “I put them there last night. I wanted to bury them, but I was so tired.”

She did not look at him as she spoke. Holding her head high, she strode out of the ruined house as fast as possible. She did not want to remember her home like those French beasts had left it: her mother’s lace curtains singed, fine carpets smeared with blood and vomit, her father’s desk hacked to pieces, the silver crucifixes gone, and the painted china bowl from Meissen used as a chamber pot. 

Teresa jumped when Don Blas gingerly put a hand on her shoulder. “I am sorry,” he said. “I will send Stefano for food. Then we’ll give them a decent burial before the day gets even hotter. Why don’t you and María sit over there, in the shade, and rest?”

He brought them water in a crude mug he unearthed in the servants’ quarters, and fetched a cloth to wipe their dirty, tear-stained faces. The count regarded the sisters full of solicitousness and pity, as if they were crippled or dying. Teresa wanted to spit at him, or slap his cheek. 

After Stefano returned, he had no more time to smother her with concern: the men began to dig. It was slow-going work, for the ground in the yard was hard-baked and unyielding. Teresa sat and watched and lightly stroked María’s hair, careful to avoid the bloody spot on her sister’s scalp where the soldiers had ripped out her lovely dark locks. They ate while the men tried to break the soil, gorging on the food like animals, though the bread was stale and the lamb half-raw. 

With a muffled curse, Don Blas threw down his shovel. “It’s no good. The earth is too hard. I’ll have to send for more men to – to take care of them.” 

Teresa gave her sister a reassuring smile and got to her feet. “You should try the garden,” she said. “Mother always sees to it that the flowerbeds are watered. I will help.”

She ignored Vivar’s implorations as well as Stefano’s protests. Together, they dug and dug until the groom’s limp became more pronounced, till sweat was streaming down the don’s neck, and Teresa could barely raise her arms anymore. She managed to lift them one last time when they bedded the bodies in the pit: the shovelful of dirt rained down upon her parents, obliterating their faces forever. 

Don Blas stuttered his way through a _Libera me, Domine_ , his voice thick with unshed tears, while old Stefano wept openly and couldn’t make it through an _Ave_. 

“Would you like to say a prayer too?” the count asked them. María, who had still not spoken since she all but begged the French soldiers to kill her, gazed at him with huge eyes and made the sign of the cross over the fresh grave. 

“ _Señorita_?” Stefano said. “Señorita Teresa?” They all looked at her expectantly. So she stopped picking at her torn and bleeding nails, and opened her mouth. 

“A prayer,” she repeated, but she could not remember anything Father Pedro had taught her. “Death,” she said. “Death to the French.” 

***

Don Blas and Stefano took them out of the city, their departure unhindered by French troops. Whenever the blue of a uniform jacket flashed past their carriage window, María screwed her eyes shut. Teresa did not look away: she stared at the soldiers outside, sullenly, unflinchingly. In her mind, the rattle of the wheels fell into a relentless rhythm: death to the French, death to the French… It accompanied her all the way to Sahagún. 

Their new home was a modest dwelling on the outskirts of town, which did not befit the standing of the count of Mouromorto. “Shouldn’t you be at home in Galicia, on your estate?” Teresa asked him, surprised at the shabbiness of the furniture and the muddy colour of the carpeting. 

“The countship is disputed,” Major Vivar said. “My brother supports the French, and they support Tomás’s claim.” After that brief explanation, he did not discuss the topic again. Instead, he renewed his promise to look after Don César’s daughters for however long they needed him. 

At least, the count did talk to her, though he had his bouts of taciturn moodiness. Her sister refused to speak altogether: María spent most days sleeping or in silent prayer. Occasionally, she cried in her sleep. It broke Teresa’s heart, although she did not weep. Anger was supposed to be hot and passionate, a raging firestorm, but she was cold inside, a brittle frost that froze up her tears, or an icy fear that sapped her heart. 

She had better not mention this to María, for it would disturb her little sister even further, but either of them might be carrying a French bastard. Though Teresa was not well versed in such matters, the little she knew was enough to give her pause. How on Earth should she bring up this subject with Maria? Fortunately, the dreaded conversation proved to be unnecessary – one small mercy that Teresa welcomed with infinite gratitude. 

Sometimes, María would sit in an armchair and gaze through the window, watching the songbirds and the roses in the tiny garden. When she stood up one evening to retire to her room, she blushed furiously, tears of embarrassment running down her wan cheeks. Teresa, however, nearly laughed when she spotted the cause of her sister’s distress: a bloodstain bloomed on the threadbare velvet cushion. 

“Don’t you worry,” Teresa whispered, “go upstairs and lie down. I’ll bring you rags and a cup of hot milk. Let me take care of this.” 

While she scrubbed and scrubbed on the upholstery, she wondered when her own monthly bleeding would come. It had never been regular, as her mother told her it would be when she was a girl of sixteen and bled for the first time. Teresa had not been able to picture herself with a baby of her own when _mamá_ spoke encouragingly of marriage, a wife’s duties, and the blessings of children. She countenanced the thought far less now: that bastard would be a constant reminder of the most horrible day in her life. Was it because of this that some women strangled their babe with the cord as soon as it was born? 

As she woke from a blurry nightmare with stabbing pains and a spotted nightgown some days later, she started shaking from relief. Don Blas saw her sitting at the breakfast table, sipping at a glass of watered-down wine and spilling half the liquid with trembling hands. “He will give me that look again,” Teresa thought, and she was right. “That look”, as she called it, was a stolen glance, concerned and condescending. She did not want his concern: she wanted him to understand that she was getting angrier by the day. 

Teresa did not share in the general excitement that prevailed in the streets of Sahagún. Between the successes in Catalonia and the British victory in Portugal, the French would turn tail and run, everyone said. There were weapons and money from Britain pouring into the country. With such support, they would surely celebrate next Christmas in a free Spain. 

Over a month after the triumph at Bailén, each Sunday mass was still said in celebration of the Spanish army. In church, Teresa bowed her head low to hide that she did not join those prayers. “Yes, we won at Bailén,” she told herself with increasing bitterness, “and yet the French came to pillage Medina de Rio Seco.” 

On her way to and from church, she saw the townsfolk swaggering about as if they had stood by General Castaños’s side on the battlefield: newly appointed officers with useless commissions, the count grumbled, and self-important homeguards, who bragged to be twice as brave as the _somatenes_ that had stood against the French in Bruc, when they truly hoped to escape the regular army. They all seemed convinced that Napoleon would tremble before their might, even in far-off Austria. King Ferdinand would return and restore the monarchy without his father’s vile advisors, and the monster Bonaparte would wail and gnash his teeth in hell. 

Teresa listened intently to such conversations, but she was more inclined to trust in Don Blas’s judgement rather than the gossip of villagers and armchair generals. He seemed worried about the progress of the war, and he’d used to be a major. Even her parents, who’d had many political disputes with the count and complained about useless philanderers in the officer corps, always respected their old friend. If it wasn’t for that friendship and the resulting sense of obligation, Teresa suspected, Major Vivar would have rejoined the army already. 

Though she appreciated his sense of duty, there were moments when she could not stand his uneasy presence any longer. Nor did she want to listen to María’s inconsolable weeping, or think of her parents when her memories caught her off-guard. Teresa would rather hide in the stables and help Stefano with the don’s horses. At first, the groom rejected her offer with a horrified expression. 

“Please, Stefano,” she said. “It will be you doing me a favour. I need something to do, or I will think too much. And then I shall go mad. Stir-crazy like a goat – isn’t that how you call it?” 

“All right, Señorita Teresa.” He smiled and tossed her a hoofpick. While she was disentangling knotted manes or polishing saddle leather, it was almost like old times. In the long summers on her father’s country estate, Stefano had held the reins as her father first put her on a horse, or the groom taught her and the housekeeper’s children to shoot at birds and rabbits. 

Focusing on those tasks – familiar, menial, exhausting – soothed her, and it did not take long before Stefano talked to her like he had always done: he chatted away about horse fodder, green forage, and grains, about the weather, or he cited those quaint proverbs that María and she had once imitated in mockery to amuse some conceited youths in a ballroom.

“He as has gets a bitch as whelps him piglets,” he’d said when María pouted about the exceedingly pretty Inés de Flores receiving a brand-new gown for the season. Or, “ _amar y saber, no puede todo ser_ – you can’t be in love and yet be sensible,” when Inés promptly cried out her eyes for the one _caballero_ that would not have her. The groom did not apply his home-grown wisdom to the war against the French. Teresa liked him all the better for it. 

Stefano did tell her about the girl from Zaragoza, though, the one who’d manned the cannons on the city walls and shredded the enemy. When she’d heard the story before, in her parents’ drawing-room, Agustina had been an object of admiration and curiosity; the tale now filled her with envy and longing. 

“Belike I’ll go and join them _partidas_ if the French aren’t gone as autumn comes around,” Stefano said. “Th’army will be out to get me anyway, despite my age and my leg. Those rich fellas, they’re buying themselves off, and us poor folks, we’ll get drafted, sent halfway across Spain, and shot to death.” 

He bowed with a groan to scrape the dirt from a lively purebred’s shoes. 

“Those partisans, they’re not far from home, and there’ll be less scraping and bowing to _señores_. Begging your pardon, Señorita Teresa, but not all are as decent as your father, God rest his soul, or as honourable as th’count. Also, I’ve heard the partisans let you keep some French gold. Would be nice to have in my old age, eh?”

Autumn came around, with golden days and golden trees, and Stefano hadn’t left. Spain had a new national government, the count proclaimed, the Junta in Aranjuez, who didn’t recognize _el rey intruso_. More momentous than the news from the south, however, was the day when María spoke again. 

“Teresita,” she said one morning. Her older sister dropped a cup full of hot coffee to the ground. The scalding liquid burned her fingers, and a shard got stuck in her little toe. She didn’t notice the pain for hours. 

María still did not speak much, but she made her mind known on one point: she wanted to enter a nunnery and become a novice with the Carthusians in Burgos. Nothing that Don Blas or Teresa said could persuade her otherwise. 

Before she stepped into the carriage that would take her and her escort – an oppressively cheerful nun from Sahagún and several trustworthy men of the count’s acquaintance – back eastwards, María turned to her sister. “God bless you, Teresa,” she said, making the sign of the cross on her forehead with tender fingers. 

Teresa kissed her sister on both cheeks and nodded. She knew this was the last thing she would hear from María’s lips. While she watched the vehicle vanish down the dirt road, she wondered how she should keep the coldness at bay if she had nothing to do and no one to look after. 

Major Vivar left her alone for several days, and Stefano stopped chattering for a while as they worked in the stables. On the fourth day, the count called her into his study. Courteously, he drew out a chair for her and offered her a glass of his best sherry. 

Teresa gave him a tight-lipped smile and decided to skip the polite rituals. “What would you like to talk to me about?” 

He nodded eagerly. “I was wondering if you felt well enough for a long journey south. We shall travel together, of course. Your uncle in Badajoz will surely welcome you with open arms. He recently got engaged to be married: his fiancée should be about your age, and you would have a friendly, well-bred girl to keep you company…” 

Teresa clicked her tongue. “Or,” she said, bracing herself for Don Blas’s reaction, “we will travel together, you, Stefano, and I, and seek out the _guerilleros_.” 

The count’s face flushed a florid red. She did not think it was the sherry. 

***

The man who called himself _capitán_ scrutinized the three of them, taking his time. At first glance, his slight build and stooped posture did not lend themselves to intimidation. If you looked more closely, you would notice his swift movements and his shrewd eyes, light and watery in his weather-beaten face. It would not do to underestimate him. 

Giving a brief nod, he retired to the other partisans, who’d sought shelter from the rain in the tangled branches of the shrubbery. “I will let you know,” he said and left them standing there, in the middle of the downpour. 

“We should’ve stayed up north,” Stefano complained, more glumly than was his wont. He muttered the remark into his grizzled beard, but it was plainly addressed to Don Blas. 

The major raised an eyebrow. “The French will move west and south,” he hissed. “They’ll want to march on Madrid. But what I shouldn’t have done,” that barb was aimed at Teresa, “is letting myself be blackmailed into such a hare-brained scheme.” 

Teresa said nothing at all, watching the agitated discussion among the group instead. Though they spoke too low for her to overhear, their passionate expressions and sweeping gestures increased her nervousness. Perhaps Don Blas was right: she shouldn’t have threatened to run away alone if he didn’t agree to her plan… 

“They haven’t made swift process yet and killed us on the spot,” she thought in a nauseating flash of humour. “That’s an achievement.” 

The cold pressure of the knife against her thigh and the weight of the count’s pistol in her hand did nothing to alleviate her fears. She was not used to fighting, wounding, or killing, but she had no doubt that the men on the other side of the clearing were. 

As the captain of the band came walking towards them, she gripped the gun tighter. Teresa could have sworn he was laughing at her. 

“My men and I, we’ve decided you ain’t French spies,” he said with a wide grin, “nor in the magistrate’s pay. The French are devils, and our magistrate’s an old bastard, but they’ve all got more brains than the three of you put together. Still, why should we take you on?” 

He purposefully spoke to Stefano, ignoring both Teresa and Major Vivar. “A stranger from León, a _hidalgo_ , and a girl?” 

Stefano shrugged and spat on the ground. “There’s not a man as knows more about mules and horses than me,” he said. “You’ll need that when there’s French cavalry breathing down your neck.” 

“The don, he used to be a major, and a useful one at that. Knows how soldiers think. And she swore a holy oath on her mother’s grave. Death to the French. She speaks their language, aye, and reads it too. She’s a young thing, I reckon, but tough as old boot-leather. And in León, where I come from, we’ve got a saying: if you want to know a man’s true nature, give him rank and office, and you’ll see what he is like.” 

“Or she,” Teresa muttered. The captain and the men standing next to him seemed to have uncommonly good hearing, for they burst into guffawing laughter. 

“If you’re as quick in an ambush, _peque_ , as your tongue, we’ll let you stay,” one of them shouted. His half-shorn head betrayed a monk’s tonsure, but there was nothing devout or benevolent about him. With his muscled build, reddish-brown skin, small black eyes, and hanging jowls, he resembled a fierce mastiff rather than a meek clergyman. 

Teresa thought of everything she had heard about rabid dogs: don’t tuck your tail and run. Look them directly in the eye. Do not show fear. 

“My tongue is quick indeed,” she shot back, “and sharp. I will gladly use you as a whetstone, _padre_.” 

The capitán gave her an ironic bow. “Touché. – Come with us, and we’ll make camp for the night.” 

She barely slept a wink during their first nights among the partisans. Her lack of rest was not only due to her wet clothes and the cold soil beneath her aching back. She did not like the way some men looked at her: it touched on those odd non-memories she would rather not dwell upon. She lay down with her knife in hand and made sure that everybody knew about the blade. 

On the third night, a shadowy figure crouched beside her. Teresa nearly stabbed Stefano though the eye, leaving a shallow gash on his temple. “ _¡Jesucristo!”_ he swore. 

“It’s only me. Get some sleep, _señorita_ , that’s what I came to tell you. No one’ll touch a hair on your head, I swear it by the Host and His holy blood.” 

She recognized a familiar sense of mischief in the groom’s voice, the same tone in which he’d commented on her and María’s childish antics. “What did you tell them?” she said, intrigued. 

“Might be they think you’re a _meiga_ ,” he said and crossed himself, just in case. “Made a pact with Old Horney hisself at the witches’ sabbath, to avenge your parents, you see. I don’t know where they get those ideas from…” 

Teresa snorted and shook her head. Stefano’s stories had always been very colourful, she thought fondly before she fell asleep. 

The lone woman among this group of _partidas_ , she did her best not to miss her sister, who she hoped was safe and warm in the charterhouse at Burgos. María would have hated it here, in the copses and pine forests of the mountains; the noviciate suited her better than the hardships of partisan life. And yet, in some strange manner, Teresa thought those weeks rather became a noviciate of her own. 

Though she did not cut her braids, she bound up her hair. She exchanged her old clothes for home-spun garments, woollen trousers, and rough shirts that scratched her skin. In their unholy orders, plenty of time was devoted to work and prayer. She was made to look after their mounts, to collect firewood and shovel latrines, to provide food, to fetch and carry. 

Teresa did not complain, although she would whisper some obscure curse whenever their demands become too outrageous or their speech too lewd. She quoted from her father’s favourite Latin poetry, but she doubted the bullish ex-mendicant would recognize the Septuaginta, let alone Ovid.

The prayers came when they laid an ambush. Everyone suddenly turned devout, calling on the Blessed Virgin Mary and all of God’s saints for aid. The partisans did not worship Him and His flesh and blood, though: it was the mortal flesh of French soldiers that they sought, and their blood soaking into the ground. Teresa hadn’t made a kill yet, but trained how to stab and shoot. While she was with them, she taught herself to be hard, not pious, to appreciate cruelty rather than charity

She also learned deference and obedience, at least in outward show. Even the major could only give counsel to the _guerrilleros_ , and they would scoff at direct orders. So they followed Stefano’s advice and listened twice as much as they shouted. 

Even if the partisans were a stubborn lot, superstitious and ignorant of many things that Teresa took for granted, it constantly surprised her how fast news travelled across the Spanish countryside. Her companions were quick to get wind of any rumours. The squabbles between the Junta and various local notables were of interest only to the count. (“Sometimes,” Don Blas sighed as they were alone in the woods, “I think they do not care by whom they are ruled, Bonaparte, King Ferdinand, or the ghost of Don Quijote.”) But news of foreign armies captured everyone’s interest. 

There were _ingleses_ supposed to be pouring in from Portugal, but no Spanish Vimiero followed in their wake. Instead, French reinforcements came marching over the Pyrenees, the Emperor himself among them, a small soldier in familiar blue, throwing a large black shadow. The French spread out over the north of Spain, retaking much of what they’d lost earlier that year. 

The only time that Teresa asked the _capitán_ for a favour was the day when she heard about the sack of Burgos. A letter to enquire after her sister’s welfare, that was all she asked. The partisans granted her the favour. If there was a God, he gave her a miracle, too. Most of the town had been plundered, the Mother Superior informed her, but the Carthusians escaped the suffering. Other than that, miracles were scarce. One lost battle followed the other. Everyone wondered if Pepino, Bonaparte’s brother, would sit the throne in Madrid again. If, or maybe when. 

“We can support the army best if we cut off the French lines of communication,” the major said. For once, the partisans took his advice without grumbling. He wasn’t interested in gold, jewellery or weapons, which were theirs to keep. Major Vivar only wanted letters, letters and information, like a heart-to-heart with the young _voltigeur_ they captured. 

***

The officer’s eyes lit up as she entered the hut. The hint of a hopeful smile flitted around his bruised mouth. There were dimples in his round and rosy cheeks, which resembled that of a fair _señorita_ or a puppyish boy. He looked as if he was barely out of the schoolroom, though he wore the distinctive collar of a _voltigeur_. He’d been singled out for skirmishing, scouting, and shooting, a veteran of the Emperor’s infantry. When he stared at Teresa with obvious relief, he could have been any student from her days in Salamanca, with his floppy forelock and sparse moustache. 

“ _Merci, mademoiselle_ ,” he groaned when she put a pitcher to his bloody lips. “ _Que Dieu vous bénisse._ ” 

Teresa cleaned a gash on his forehead with gentle hands, forcing them not to clench in fists of rage. “How are you doing?” she asked. “They have treated you abominably.” She shrugged. “What can you expect from those peasants? Brutes.” 

Making conversation was the easy part. Although the hut stank of goats and the man reeked of urine, it was not so different from chatting in the drawing rooms of Medina de Rio Seco and Valladolid, of Badajoz and Évora. The prisoner was a well-bred young man, glad to hear someone address him in the cultivated French that spoke of a polite education and genteel manners. 

“They didn’t understand me,” he muttered, nodding at the rugged guards who hovered in the doorway. 

Teresa bit her tongue to avoid a triumphant smile. Most members of their partisan band had some difficulties in interrogating the officer: their French was broken at best and his Spanish rudimentary. However, she’d talked the _capitán_ into putting those few on guard duty who, like Stefano, preferred to use the accents of their native León. 

The plan worked better than she expected. She untied his wrists, massaging them herself to get the blood flowing. Then she fed him a bowl of gruel, spoon by spoon, and he gave away the positions of Lebrun’s advance guard for a pottage. Teresa saw his brown eyes widen when he realized what he’d done. He knew that they knew. He also knew they would not let him go. 

She wanted to slide a knife between his ribs when he wasn’t looking, as quick and surprising as a _voltigeur_ ’s bullet, but it turned into a messy business. The blade kept slipping on the bones. It slashed his hands and arms when he swatted at her in vain, feeble from his imprisonment. In the end, she stabbed him in the gut, again and again. It was nothing like pushing pins into a map. 

“Should’ve left him to us,” the captain said. Teresa wasn’t sure if his sneer was directed at the French officer or her tear-streaked face, pale with dizziness. If she had to smell those goats any longer, the goats, the blood, and the dead man’s bowels, she would be sick. 

“Why?” she said, trying for the same tone of indifferent rebuke she would have used for a saucy dinner guest at the Casa de Moreno. “A dagger is the same as a needle. I have always liked needlework.” 

He laughed, that wiry _campesino_ , who could have been one of landless labourers harvesting wheat on her father’s estate. 

Soon, his men started calling her _La Aguja_ – “the Needle”. Her bravado had earned her some respect, though the partisans did see her retch behind the hut. Respect was the only thing she gained from her first kill. No matter how many messages the partisans intercepted, no matter how bravely Don Benito’s soldiers fought, the battle was lost regardless. 

Teresa gutted a man, on a mist-shrouded November day like any other, and Madrid fell. 

***

The pebbles lay in a neat line on the frozen earth. Each white stone represented a city, and the dark ones stood for enemy troops: the frontline of occupied Spanish territory stretched from Valladolid to Avila, and the largest piece of rock – the capital – was surrounded by grey flint. The arrangement reminded Teresa of geography lessons another girl had taken in another lifetime. It was less elegant than colourful needles sticking out of atlas pages, but she liked the weight of the stones in her hands, their roughness on her palms. 

“So it’s back where we came from?” Stefano asked. 

Don Blas picked up a bit of flint and flung it into the hedge. “They will push further west,” he said. 

“Told you we should’ve stayed closer to home,” Stefano said without his former deference. “An old ox like me doesn’t like new cowbells. Or these mountains, for that matter.”

The count frowned at that display of frankness, which would have bordered on insolence on his estate. Hastily, Teresa joined the discussion, scattering more stones on their improvised map. 

“What about the English?” she asked. “They must be somewhere to the northwest too. We could be of use to them and our army.” 

Don Blas nodded. “Northwards it is.” As they scrambled to their feet, their boots pressed the stones into the ground. 

When they announced their decision to the captain, he did not attempt to keep them around, even though some partisans, born in villages closer to León, offered to join them. The _guerilleros_ in the Sierra de Guadarrama could not complain about a lack of men. 

Their ranks were growing by the day, ever more newcomers laying claim to plunder and provisions: labourers in search of a fire and a meal; smugglers hungering after bloody coin and stolen horses; homeguards who wanted to take up arms for their swathe of land, though not for Spain; plenty of deserters, who arrived with army-issue muskets tucked under their arms. 

Every time a runaway soldier flocked to the _partidas_ , the major eyed him askance. These men were their hosts, though; you did not send the local militia after those who had granted you guest right. Teresa also wondered why any army would want to have soldiers like these: deserters and paupers were a sorry sight, skinny fellows that might frighten the birds in the fields, but who would not put the fear of God into Napoleon’s armies. In comparison to those scarecrows, she was not quite a veteran, but no longer a raw recruit. Her noviciate was over. 

They left unhindered, in a flurry of snow. The soft crystals glittered in the occasional ray of sunshine that pierced the grey clouds overhead. It was the last time Teresa thought the snow beautiful. Their journey took them far longer than the same way south, and a darkling sky often turned day into night. Thus began the longest winter. Teresa would curse the season’s harshness time and again, although it rivalled her cold fury. 

Unlike Don Blas, she would never stand amidst the heat of a battle fought in the open field. She only saw regiments and battalions, Spanish and foreign, trying to regroup in an eddying mass, driven here and there, like snowflakes blown about by the winds. The army was hardly better off than the deserters in the mountains: barefoot men in ragged shirts limped along icy paths, their weapons rusty scraps and their officers’ mounts flea-ridden jades. 

Tears caught in the major’s lashes while he watched them marching by, slower than a funeral procession. Fascinated, Teresa waited for the drops to spill over and freeze on Don Blas’s cheeks. Their British allies seemed somewhat better-fed and less ill-equipped, but they were no match for their greatest foe. 

It was the winter that became everyone’s enemy. The weather made no distinction between allied and French, between partisans and regulars. Food was scarce since foraging armies ravaged the countryside like wolves on the prowl. Every morning, it proved more difficult to kindle a fire. Teresa was afraid to lower her breeches and pass water behind some bush as the cold left her with frost-bitten buttocks. 

During the day, the members of their band blasphemed the Cross, the Host, and the Blessed Virgin when they could not keep their powder dry. Teresa got accustomed to killing with a knife, as that other Moreno girl had once taken to embroidery. One day, when she forgot to put her gloves on, the ice-cold blade stuck to her palm. The metal took a strip of skin with it as she pried it loose. It was a fair trade as far as she was concerned: a piece of flesh and some drops of blood in exchange for the lives of her enemies.

It was not the faceless, shapeless soldiers from that July day in Medina de Rio Seco whom she killed. Some of her victims looked rather pleasant. They might have been the kindly French merchants Don César had wined and dined and who’d told his daughters amusing anecdotes about the salons of Paris. Others were not French at all. They swore in German or Italian before they screamed in agony. Some wore the garish uniforms Teresa learned to recognize as Swiss regimental gear, a lighter red than the dark-brown stains of crusted blood. French or no, they killed them, swiftly and methodically. 

After a while, Teresa lost count. As one winter day much resembled the other, the faces of the dead men blurred. The last one the major shot though the chest had the high forehead and wrinkly eyes of a middle-aged man; the cavalry officer Stefano took off his horse sported a fine beard and a full mouth used to laughter; the infantryman she stabbed in the heart showed fading freckles on greyish skin. But she forgot those features soon after. Only the young _voltigeur_ stayed fresh in her mind. 

Still, she killed them, couriers, skirmishers, and stragglers on the march, pursuers who threatened to turn a retreat into a rout. 

In pursuit of the pursuers, the partisans moved through the winter landscape like vengeful ghosts. Teresa did not know anything of witchcraft, nor did she believe in the tall tales that called their enemies heathens and sorcerers. Sometimes, however, she thought they’d turned into the _santa compaña_ , another legend from her childhood: the host of lost souls coming to visit those about to die. Theirs was also a quiet hunt, and a deadly one. Their peasant clothing merged with the brown of the earth, the grey of the rocks, and the black of the trees. 

The soldiers appeared as bright spots in a waste land leeched of colour. She came across dead redcoats frozen to the ground, as if asleep, stiff bodies covered in a blanket of snow. Crumpled heaps of dirty white patched with brown – and splattered with crimson – showed where their Spanish comrades had laid down to die. Occasionally, Teresa spotted troops on the move: French infantry in blue, or the green jackets of the British rifle brigade, falling back and back and back… Where would they run to, she wondered, when they came to the sea? 

They came across other traces of this mad run as well: villages with half-burned buildings and empty stores, houses whose broken doors and smashed windows left them wide open to the cold, bleating sheep from the baggage trains lost in the woods, half-naked people covered in wine or, worse, blood. If they saw any locals, when they came forth from their hiding holes, the villagers cursed all foreign invaders, friend or foe, and sometimes the Spanish, too. There was nothing Teresa could do, except not to harass them further, and move on. 

In one razed hamlet, she ran into an English soldier stumbling from a hut, dead drunk and oblivious to danger. With his right hand, he tried to clumsily button his fly while his left kept wiping at the blood on his face. Inside the cottage, a woman wept, her sobs high and shrill. 

“Pig,” Teresa said and repeated it in English, for good measure. The man blinked at her, dazed, then grinned. 

“Nice lady,” he drawled and came reeling towards her. His grin rapidly vanished as he noticed the gun in her hand. “That’s not nice,” he said in the whining tone of a drunkard. “Aren’t we allies, lady?” 

“Yes,” she said and fired. He was so close that the worst shot could not have missed. “And allies should behave like men of honour,” she said to the dead Englishman, “not like drunken swine.” 

“ _Sí, comandante_ ,” Stefano echoed from behind. He gave her a nod of approval as she walked past their men to get out of this god-forsaken place. Another partisan raised his hand in an ironic salute. 

The title of commander began as a grim joke, and the men used it in jest. After a while, though, Teresa realized that there was more than a grain of truth in the mockery. They did listen to her or sought her advice. No wonder, she thought, for there was none forthcoming from Major Vivar. The count seemed withdrawn and plagued by low spirits. 

“My ancestors would be ashamed of me,” he said to her when no one else would hear. “It should be _¡Santiago, y cierra España!_ , not this – this madness.” 

Apart from this moment of familiarity, Don Blas did not say much any more, nor did he smile, not even on Christmas Eve. But then, nobody smiled on Christmas. They were all cold, hungry, and miserable, listening to the tinny sound of a church bell that carried over the hills, calling the faithful to Mass at midnight. It reminded Teresa of her sister. She hoped that María would pray for her, and for a better year to come.

If María had included her elder sister in her prayers, God once more deemed it fit not to listen. The new year began as inauspiciously as the old one ended. January was barely half over when their group heard of a battle at La Coruña and the English general’s death. _Los ingleses_ were gone, maybe forever; the Spanish army was scattered to the winds; if there was news from other parts of the country, it mainly concerned the fall of cities. 

In the Cantabrian Mountains, in Asturias and Galicia, the war had turned into a dragged-out scramble between the French and irregular fighters. In this struggle for single towns and tiny villages, no road stayed safe for the Emperor’s men – and no gallows remained empty. Some of the local populace would lust after French blood to avenge those strung up in the market square. Mostly, they just seemed weary. At times, Teresa thought this gruesome game of tug-of-war would never end, like the cursed winter. 

The first days of spring came with a gush of mild air from the sea. They brought back earlier mornings and shorter nights, the rise of sap in the trees and the rise of hope in their hearts. They also brought the French bullet that smattered Stefano’s face. 

Teresa did not remember much of the spring after that. The fog only lifted on the day when Don Blas drew her aside. 

“I won’t continue like this,” he said. “I will not, and I cannot. Neither can you, I think. We should go home.” 

“Home?” she asked. “What do you mean – home?” 

Was the major talking about Medina de Rio Seco, which would be forever tainted by plunder, rape, and murder? About his house in Sahagún, where Teresa would sit alone in a with-drawing room, without a sister to look after, or wander deserted stables, without Stefano to talk to? Or was he still planning to send her to Badajoz, to a once beloved uncle she had not seen in years? 

Major Vivar smiled for the first time in months. “The seat of the counts of Mouromorto. I will settle this dispute with Tomás, once and for all,” he said with sudden fervour, “and I will honour my ancestor, who carried Santiago’s banner into battle against the moors.”

Teresa frowned. “I do not see how this will avail us against the French.” 

He laughed. “You don’t? We will not fight for one village alone: if everything goes well, we will spark an uprising.” 

Don Blas’s passion was a welcome change in her friend, but not enough to vanquish her scepticism. “Us two, and a handful of men?” she said, as evenly as possible. 

“Well, I don’t see anyone else,” he answered. “We will figure if we can enlist someone to aid us. I would be glad about your help, _comandante_.” 

There was a trace of affectionate humour in his voice, but Teresa did not think he was making fun of her. He spoke to her as an equal instead of addressing a ward. The count laughed. “You owe me a hare-brained scheme.” 

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, “yes, I do.”

Their aid came in the unexpected guise of an intelligence officer from the British troops that had returned to Portugal. Riding far behind enemy lines on a docile donkey, as though he did not have a care in the world, he introduced himself as Major Hogan. He should have cut a ridiculous figure, with his humble mount and old straw-hat, his tobacco-speckled moustache and jovial demeanour. But he did not seem to brag when he explained that he was one of General Wellesley’s personal advisors. 

“I’ll give you an entire company, _amigos mios_ , if that’s what you need,” Hogan promised. Though it sounded like a joke, his smile did not reach his eyes. 

After their run-in with the French cavalry, they never got their company. They barely got away with their lives. Some of their men were not that lucky. Huddled on the hillside, Teresa watched as Colonel De L’Eclin’s riders slaughtered the hapless Englishmen that were supposed to escort them to Torrecastro. She did not know if she should swear or cry or laugh like a madwoman possessed. Judging from his death grip on her shoulder, Major Vivar felt about the same. 

As she raised her telescope again, Teresa did laugh out loud. She’d failed to notice the light infantrymen before, though they crouched on the slope directly opposite their position. Their dark green uniforms did not stand out much against the evergreen bushes. “Look at those English hiding over there,” she said and passed on the telescope to Major Vivar. 

It was not very heroic to duck for cover while your comrades were slashed to pieces and your colours trampled into the mud. On the other hand, half a dozen foot soldiers would not have made a difference against fully armed dragoons. Teresa would take survival instinct over stupid heroism any time. At least, those soldiers would live to fight another day. What they did then, however, surprised her. 

She whistled softly through her teeth as they retrieved a couple of wounded men and grabbed their pennant. They were as quick back up the hill as they’d sneaked downwards. So Don Blas and she were to have allies after all. If someone had told her, though, that she would not only fight beside them, but also take a fancy to their newly commissioned Lieutenant Sharpe, why, she would have laughed in his face. This was an ambush she had not prepared herself for. 

***

Before the general leavetaking after Torrecastro began, Teresa walked into the stables for her meeting with Sharpe – no, Richard now – as a man condemned might walk to his death. She could have ignored his whispered request or bid him farewell in front of everyone’s eyes. But that secret tryst was what she wanted: to obliterate those blanks in her memory, empty spaces on a map where monsters dwelt, to fill them with the friendly face of a man she’d come to like and respect. 

Her body did not know of the decision her conscious mind had made. As soon as he reached for her, she shied away and froze. Her courage failing her, she sought refuge in a desperate flight forward. Teresa yanked at her blouse, pulling so hard that two buttons came off and vanished in the straw beneath her feet. Cold sweat prickled on her neck. She felt faint, as if she might swoon, though not from passion. 

Perhaps, an insidious voice whispered in her head, perhaps all men in uniform were alike. They treated women like plunder, at worst damaged goods to use and to discard, at best prizes to be possessed: the spoils of war, worth the same as a cask of port or a cavalry horse, and handled with less care than the beast of burden. 

“No,” he said, “no, Teresa, don’t be afraid.” So he remembered her name, who she was, that she was someone, not a thing. She’d seen him kill through her spyglass before she learned his name. He strangled an enemy with his bare hands, brutally and efficiently. Those long, calloused fingers were surprisingly hesitant on her body, and gentle. 

“Are you all right?” Richard asked with a strangled breath, after they’d been kissing for a while. “I will be,” she said. She wondered how firm her voice sounded, how detached and composed, and guided his hand under her blouse. 

If it was not a particularly passionate experience for her, it was not painful, either, and she finally had some memories to think of with fondness. Men talked of conquests, she thought while she was gathering her clothes, whether they seduced an elegant lady in a drawing-room or caught a camp-follower’s eye with a purse of gold. This was not his conquest, though. In an odd way, it was her victory, no matter how dearly bought or how small. 

Afterwards, Teresa suspected that everyone must know what they’d been up to. She struggled with the urge to shake her loosened hair and check it again for bits of straw, to rearrange her clothing, or to search for tell-tale dirt stains on her trousers. There should be marks blooming on her tingling skin, where his mouth had been mere minutes before: she almost let her fingers run over the expanse of her throat and the slope of her neck. 

Studiously, she looked anywhere but in his direction. Yet, she imagined his gaze following her, as palpable as his touch. Later, as she rode away, she turned at the last moment: there he was, looking at her the whole time. Their eyes met, and Teresa did not dare to blink until her horse trotted round the bend in the road. 

Hastily, she robbed her burning eyes. “ _¡Necia!_ ” she muttered under her breath. “You foolish girl!” Indeed, you could not be in love and yet be sensible. Teresa bit her lip. Did the thought upset her because it brought back memories of Stefano, or because she did not want to think of Sharpe that way?

She should not moon after some foreign officer like a lovesick debutante staring at a handsome _caballero_ in the ballroom. It would do her good to concentrate on the tasks at hand, now that the riflemen and Major Hogan had rejoined Wellesley’s army. She doubted she would see Richard again. But she would receive word from the major, an obstinate suitor clamouring for her attention, as soon as the exploring officer needed her support once more. 

For the moment, all she and Don Blas had to do was to escort their travel companions to safety. James Rothschild and his friend George would take lodgings in Lisbon, or board a vessel to England, heading for the London branch of the banking house. And Miss Louisa – Miss Louisa seemed to spend an awful lot of time in Don Blas’s company, listening raptly to his stories and lighting up his face with each reply. The count was a widower: he had mourned long enough for wife and child, lost to yellow fever while he was on garrison duty in Florida… Teresa smiled, for surely this was an idea better suited to María’s love of gossip and romance – and then she stopped smiling. 

“ _¡Necia!_ ” she cursed again, her face twisted in disgust, and rode ahead to the nearest inn. 

***

Louisa and she shared a room. When they retired after dinner, Teresa noticed that her new acquaintance appeared somewhat pale in the candlelight, even for an Englishwoman with a milky complexion. 

“Are you all right?” she asked, wincing as Richard’s voice echoed in her mind. “Is anything wrong, Miss Louisa?” 

“If you are called Louisa…?” Teresa added an instant later. She hadn’t asked yet how she came to be travelling with the courier from Vienna, so far in hostile territory. 

The girl sat on the edge of the bed, trembling slightly, gaze fixed on the dusty floorboards, and didn’t answer. For a few horrified seconds, Teresa was reminded of her sister, mute, dull-eyed, and unresponsive, but – thanks be to God! – Louisa raised her head, sniffled, and nodded. 

“My name’s really Louisa. I’m not some frightfully clever spy,” she said, trying for a laugh, which came out as a mixture of a cough and a sob. Without further comment, Teresa poured her some water and waited until she was well enough to continue. 

“My aunt and uncle are really Methodist missionaries, too, but they’re spreading the gospel in England. Mrs Bufford – that’s my aunt – had a fit of the vapours when I entered into service abroad, with a family full of Papists. That was the main idea, obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Teresa repeatedly dryly and decided she liked Louisa. 

“I was a governess, you see, for an English lady who’d married a _morgado_ from Oporto.” 

Oporto. No wonder that Louisa blanched and trembled. She looked like she might dissolve into tears at any moment. Teresa idly wondered what to do. This was not her sister, and Teresa was not a comforting presence, no nurse on whose maternal bosom a frightened girl could cry and rest.

“I once had an Anglo-Portuguese governess, too. We lived in Lisbon for two summers,” she found herself saying. “Miss Caroline. She taught us English and told us about Senhor Shakespeare. Poor woman – she had no idea I’d rather need soldiers’ cant!”

The remark brought a smile to Louisa’s face. Teresa nodded for her to go on. 

“I was in Oporto when it fell,” Louisa said, picking at a loose thread in her shift until it tore. 

“I was lucky. I was stuck on the northern riverbank when the bridge crashed. Some strangers, a Portuguese family – they were my guardian angels. They hid me, and we laid low until the plundering was over. Then they offered to take me out of the city. I’d have followed them to the gates of Hell, I swear.” 

Teresa handed her another drink. In the mountains, strong _queimada_ , burned over an open fire in the dark, worked wonders to calm your nerves before a skirmish. Here water would have to do. Though Louisa had no liquor to loosen her tongue, she began to babble. 

“But we were on the wrong side of the Douro, and the bridge was broken, and there were all those bloated corpses in the water, and bleeding bodies in the streets, where they’d trampled each other, and I was so – so – so put out I didn’t realize we were going the wrong way.” 

She blew her nose, loudly and unladylike, into her sleeve. “When I could think again, I was stranded in a border village. Even after our Army retook Oporto, I did not know how on Earth to get back behind British lines.” 

“Stumbling into Mrs – I mean, Mr Rothschild, that seemed another godsend. I was as much deceived as you. He apologized to me today, in the most gentlemanlike manner. He said it was better if I knew nothing about their true purpose. He thought we’d travel the last bit together, meet Major Hogan and a British patrol, and we would be safe.” 

“Safe,” Teresa thought, “there is no such thing as safe, not in Spain.” 

To Louisa, she said nothing, just fetched a piece of cloth so the girl could dab her blotchy face. When she was done, Louisa looked up from bloodshot eyes. 

“She has spirit,” Teresa admitted silently, as she saw the shaky smile on her companion’s face. 

“You know,” Louisa said, “I went to Portugal to escape my relatives, a dreary life, and my lack of prospects as a spinster. Places like Lisbon and Oporto sounded dreadfully exciting. But it was too exciting, and mostly dreadful.” 

She dropped the cloth, her face crumpling, and started crying again, very softly. Teresa let her. The tears would dry on their own. The young _inglesa_ was holding up well: she’d shown courage under fire and quick thinking on her feet. Few people hiding from a cavalry attack in an abandoned carriage would pay attention to the commands an officer shouted in a language not their own. 

After some more sobbing and another cup of water, Louisa sat up straight. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “I – I must be awful to put up with. I’ve seen many unpleasant things in Oporto. I shall see many more here in the Peninsula. But I hope I’ll come to appreciate your country and see it at peace.” 

Teresa nearly laughed in mirthless joy, sharp and bitter, the only kind of laughter that had survived the winter. Before Somosierra, plenty of patriots would have bet their first-born son or immortal soul on peace before Christmas. Napoleon would bow before the heroism of the Spanish people and cower behind the Pyrenees. 

In less than a year, the French had occupied much of Spain and almost regained a foothold in Portugal. Sometimes, she thought there would never be peace until the last Frenchman or Imperial mercenary was rotting in a shallow grave on Spanish soil, his throat a bloody gash from Teresa’s knife. 

To Louisa, she said, “You are staying? We could arrange safe passage to England if you wish.” 

Her companion blushed. Even though her cheeks and nose shone red from weeping, a crimson flush blotted out those stains. “Don – Major – the count has kindly offered me his hospitality,” she answered. 

“I see,” Teresa said without revealing that she’d suspected it all along. “He is a decent man. Old friend of my family. He will be a good h… host.” 

“How long have you known him?” Louisa asked, perking visibly at the change of subject. “Long enough,” Teresa replied. She did not want to talk about the long winter, nor would Louisa be eager to hear those tales. “It’s late now, and you look tired. We should go to sleep.” 

It wasn’t long before Louisa’s snoring filled the room. The opportunity to share her memories of Oporto and cry before a sympathetic audience had done the trick: while Teresa tossed in bed for hours, flinging off the shared blanket by accident, the other woman did not stir. She slept the deep, exhausted slumber of relief. 

Teresa envied her. She studied the pattern of light and shadows thrown by the moonlight trickling through the latticed window, searching for familiar figures in the shapes, and tried to calm her racing thoughts. Sleep did not come. Hopefully, it would be not one of those nights when she lay awake until the small hours of the morning, only to doze off for a while and awaken in a fright. Her heart would hammer, she would gasp for air like a drowning man, her limbs would shake, and it would not stop. 

When sleep crept up on her, it came as a friend. She did not wake until the sun shone straight into her face. Teresa blinked drowsily: the vague remnants of a dream seemed more real than Louisa’s presence on the other side of the bed. Even in those dreams, she had slept safely, resting undisturbed beside a fire. Someone spread a coat over her, scuffed leather settling on her body like a second skin. 

Sharpe had lent her his greatcoat, she remembered. In her dream, he kept sitting next to her, brushing her hair from her face. His hand lingered on her cheek the whole night. In her dream, Teresa smiled. When she came fully awake, it made her angry: what stupidity – to smile at someone who wasn’t even there! 

The anger stayed with her for a long time. Whenever Louisa waved from the coach, Teresa gave a terse nod. When the count helped their new friend out of the carriage, forgetting to let go of Louisa’s hand after, she looked away to check on her mount’s horseshoes. Though she held Don Blas in high esteem and liked the Englishwoman well enough, she hoped they would part ways soon, with the couple departing to enquire after Louisa’s employers. Solitude suited Teresa, and wartime was no pleasant occasion for courtship. 

How strange that the count might take a Protestant wife, though Louisa would surely accept the Catholic faith during the marriage service. Even if war was no place for romance, it did make for strange bedfellows. Don Blas was among the staunchest traditionalists of Teresa’s acquaintance. He already had to accept that the financial support of their cause depended on the courage and cunning of a courier he’d have insulted as an infidel under other circumstances. For a man who’d challenged his own brother for his vision of the old Spain, this must be a bitter pill to swallow. 

If that war was ever to end, no one would go back to their old lives. The old Spain was no more. Perhaps it was a chimera that had not existed at all, a spectre haunting the pulpits and the pamphlets of the propagandists. The old Spain lay buried together with the Morenos. And a new Spain? Teresa could not imagine it. She’d forgotten what came before; she could not see what might come after. There was the next attack to plan, the next skirmish to survive, the next soldier to kill – the only things that mattered. 

She would ride on alone, head past Coimbra to Santarém and turn eastwards, up the River Tagus, to carry word of Torrecastro with her. In the north, the news would spread without help, from village to village, sparking one local insurrection after the other, driving the last French garrisons from Galicia and Asturias. Further south, along the border, it would keep alive hope, arouse the apathetic, and bolster Teresa’s reputation. 

She had to operate on unfamiliar terrain, among the chieftains of local _partidas_ , who might first regard her with suspicion or scorn. But she could tell them what she’d seen and done: she had carried the holy banner of legend to its former home; she had met some British allies who didn’t behave like plundering swine, and she had helped to liberate a town from the French. 

“The only things that matter,” she repeated, this time aloud, as though to persuade herself. 

**_iii. Talavera - Campo Maior - Almeida: July 1809 - August 1810_**

There was nothing like haggling with bandits to take your mind off a lovers’ spat – even if the quarrel took place before a battle and those angry words could well be the last you’d spoken to one another. Why, those greedy _capullos_ were sufficient to make you forget about the battle itself. 

Teresa argued with as much sophistry as a Jesuit and as much swearing as a fishwife before the smugglers yielded to her demands: she could leave them, secure in the knowledge that the lion’s share of supplies and horses would go to the Spanish army or their allies. If the French came to purloin or procure, they’d find mouldy bread, maggoty meat, and lame Rosinantes. In case they won at Talavera, their quartermasters would have trouble to provision the glorious victors. 

She fought the urge to give her mare the spurs and race back to the city. It had been hard to find a mount. Even the cavalry was short of decent horses. She would not ruin a sure-footed animal by flogging it half to death. The battle would be decided without her. Captain Richard Sharpe would live or die. The journey took far too long, though, longer than could be measured in miles or hours. 

As Teresa came riding up the road from Arzobispo, the cannons had fallen silent. Clouds of smoke and dust hung over the valley, and the river ran red with blood. The town echoed with drunken carousing and pitiful moaning. Rumours spread faster than the wildfire that burned the wounded left in the field to a cinder. 

The Spanish fought heroically – no, Wellesley’s men saved the day, and may the devil take those bungling Spaniards – the British fraternized with the French during the ceasefire, a pox upon those foreign traitors! The only thing everyone agreed upon was the Imperial Eagle. Somebody had captured a French standard, like those which rested in Seville’s cathedral, in remembrance of Spain’s salvation at Bailén. 

Teresa listened to the gossip in Talavera’s streets, but she only heard the beating of her own heart and the rush of blood in her ears. When she reported to Major Hogan, she could not have repeated what she’d just told him about artillery horses. 

“What a lovely surprise to see you back so soon, _comandante_ ,” the major said affably. “You must be very eager to commission those animals. Or are you bringing news from my agents?” 

Hogan took a generous pinch from his silver snuff box. Teresa bristled. Usually, she ignored his rhetorical parlour games, or rather enjoyed them. He revelled in knowing more than whomever he talked to, in sly insinuations or innocent remarks with hidden meanings. But she’d lost her taste for verbal duellos after she saw corpses stripped naked along the road, the vulnerable flesh covered in fat black flies under the July sun. Out of uniform, all dead bodies looked alike. 

“Or you have got news for _me_ , major,” she said. 

Hogan’s only reply consisted in drawn out sniffing and a satisfied sneeze. Before she could stop to think, Teresa sent the tobacco box flying to the ground. 

“I don’t have time for this. Not today.” She swallowed her pride, together with the lump in her throat. “Is he alive? Can you tell me if he’s doing well?” 

“No, Sharpe…,” Hogan began to speak. The next thing Teresa knew, she was sitting in his armchair, although she could not remember him offering a seat. He pressed a glass of brandy into her hands. 

“He is alive,” he hastened to say, “the eejit has taken a French eagle, but he yet lives. But, my dear girl, I can’t tell you he is doing well. He’s with our wounded. The surgeon won’t wager if he’ll survive the night.” 

The major produced a striped handkerchief from his tunic. “Here you go now. Blast that snuff. Makes everyone’s eyes water.” 

“A pernicious habit,” Teresa croaked, her palate burning from the brandy, her tongue oddly thick, and her cheeks aglow with embarrassment. “Take me to the hospital.” 

She should be rejoicing at the triumph over the French, but Teresa was not in a festive mood. If decent mounts were rare, decent army surgeons were rarer. Most men in the convent’s refectorium, which served as a temporary field hospital, would not toast Sir Arthur’s victory any time soon. 

The ones who still had the stomach for pleasantries called lewd suggestions in English or bastardized Spanish. Normally, such language made her blood run hot in outrage or her skin grow cold in returned fear. However, the soldiers spread out on cloaks, raggedy blankets, and pallets of straw were too feeble to take a piss on their own. Others, the weaker ones, quietly muttered something that could have been a stammered prayer, a request for water, or the name of a Lisbon whore. Some did not say anything, twitching in fever dreams. A few lay very still. They were probably dead. As she passed them, Teresa crossed herself in reflex, mouthing a silent _requiem aeternam._

Richard did not greet her or acknowledge he was there. She stared at his near-unmoving form. 

“Thank you, Major Hogan, for showing me in.” 

The finality in her voice was an obvious hint. Though he was a Royal Engineer and she but a self-appointed _comandante_ tolerated by the British Army, as long as she was of use, Teresa knew how to dismiss a man. Hogan’s footsteps receded. She was relieved to get rid of him. 

The spectacle she’d made of herself was bad enough. She did not want his prying eyes on her heart when it lay bare, an open wound, raw and tender, whether she wanted it or not. After all, she was a soldier, of sorts. It did not do to expose your weakness to the enemy. 

Did she think of Hogan as the enemy? A bitter smile flashed across Teresa’s hawk-like features. Until her country was at peace, every man was a potential enemy. If she showed them her weak spots, it would be simple to gauge their reactions: they would consider her easy prey, or patronize her, send her back to the ruin of her world, so she could sit and wait and watch Spain burn. 

Carefully, Teresa took Richard’s left hand into hers, absurdly happy when his fingers fluttered. Only some days before, this hand had tilted her chin towards his face and toyed with her tousled hair. Now the fingers lay limp between her palms, and he had no inkling that she was sitting by his side, gazing upon the face she knew so intimately. She had no idea how long she sat there, minutes or hours, when she could not rein in the anger anymore. 

“ _¿Pero qué coño?_ “ she hissed, „was that necessary? What did you have to prove? You – you stupid, stubborn, _loco cabrón. ¡Me cago en el águila maldita! ¡Vete al infierno, hijo de una puta ingle –!_ ”

“Jesus, Miss Teresa,” a familiar voice said, “the captain’s a proper bastard, so he is. But should a fine lady like yourself talk that way about other people’s mothers?” 

Teresa laughed, despite herself. He had a point: even _La Aguja _, who did not have much in common with the Teresa de Moreno of yore, scarcely cursed. Even her roughest words proved how much she cared for Sharpe.__

With a tired smile, she said: “Good afternoon, sergeant. Has Major Hogan sent you?” 

“He hasn’t. I didn’t know you’d come, or I’d have brought a nice cup of tea. Seems you need one: it’s well past dusk. How long have ye been here?” 

She shrugged, turning to look up at the burly Irishman without letting go of Richard’s hand. “I’m not sure.” 

Harper rolled his eyes. “You need something stronger than a cuppa.” He unscrewed the flask that hung from his belt and made a great show out of wiping its neck with his dirt-stained green sleeve. “Have yourself a drink, miss. It’s honey rum from the Canaries. It tastes sweet and lets you sleep even sweeter.” 

Gratefully, she took a couple of gulps. Only then did she notice how much her tense shoulders ached, how numb her legs had gone, and how utterly exhausted she was. 

“I should lie down,” she conceded. “Can you find somewhere to set up camp for me? A deserted corner will do. I must be up early tomorrow, to see a man about more horses.” 

Harper studied the ceiling with exaggerated interest as she leaned forward to leave a lingering kiss on Richard’s fever-hot lips. 

“I will hear if – when he recovers,” she said. “I’m sorry, Patrick. I cannot stay. Look after him.” 

Teresa breathed a sigh of release as they left the refectorium. She hated sitting there, helpless and useless, cooped up and unable to act. Her hands, which had not been made for rough work, were long accustomed to slitting throats, loading muskets, and stripping a dead soldier’s blood-soaked clothes for gold or missives. But they could neither mend an entire nation nor heal a single man. Teresa hated herself for it. 

Most of all, Teresa hated how her mind dared turn to Spain and Richard Sharpe in the same instant, how he dared to matter, how she dared to have something that could be taken from her again. The war had stolen her home, her parents, even the sister she had forced herself to miss no longer. 

Sor Dolores, who had once been María de Moreno, had chosen the nunnery, a Carthusian’s solitary life, and perpetual silence. Sometimes, Teresa longed for sisterly gossip and girlish past-times; on other days, she wanted drag Dolores – María – out of the convent and shake her until she came to her senses. Mostly, she envied her: those who had forsaken the world, what did they fear to lose? 

“’Scuse me?” Teresa said, yawning and rubbing her eyes in reply to what Harper had asked her. Twice. 

“Should I send for you if he wakes?” the sergeant repeated patiently. “Is there anything I should tell him? 

“I will know when he gets better,” she said with a jerk of her chin. “I can speak with him myself.” 

She’d better save whatever pride and dignity she had left. Sooner or later, Major Hogan would talk: for an officer dabbling in reconnaissance and espionage, he did not know when to remain discreet. 

“You haven’t seen me around, sergeant,” she said. “I was never here.” 

Harper nodded solemnly. “Aye, Miss Teresa. You aren’t here, I’m not talking to you, and I’ve just stepped outside for bird-watching in the middle of the night. Look, a brown owl that isn’t here, either.” 

She smiled, like he had intended. “Thank you.” 

As she crossed the courtyard, in the direction of the empty shed he indicated, she heard him call softly: “I will take care of him, miss. When you pray, say an _Ave_ from me, too.” 

***

As Teresa returned to Talavera for the second time in a week, a note to Major Hogan in her pocket and the promise of more horses firmly in mind, the town was still in a state of upheaval. Some residents were unpacking wagons and crates while others did not appear to trust the proclamations of victory: they lingered in the doorways of barred houses, their most treasured possessions spilling out of sacks and boxes. 

An escaped chicken ran heedless through the alleyway, clucking and flapping its clipped wings. Teresa gave it a wide berth to avoid stumbling over the bird. She bumped into someone and mumbled an automatic apology. 

“Never mind. Oh,” said Countess Josefina. Would-be countess, Teresa amended silently. Josefina hung on to the arm of a red-coated officer, who helped her gallantly to navigate her wide skirts around a pile of horseshit. Captain Leroy, the loyalist from Virginia, that was his name, wasn’t it? He recognized Teresa, too, politely tipping his hat. “G’afternoon, _coman_ —,” he hesitated. “Ma’am.” 

“Good afternoon,” Josefina smiled. “I am sorry. I didn’t notice. I did not even know you were back in town.” 

Teresa shrugged. “I have to deliver a letter to Major Hogan.” And to drop in at the hospital, she thought and did not say. 

“Begging your pardon, but you look rather tired,” Leroy said. “Why don’t you escort Senhora Josefina to her lodgings and stay for dinner? I’ll be pleased to hand Major Hogan any message of yours.” 

“It is an urgent matter,” she replied, but the captain insisted in courteous tenacity, stretching out a hand: “You can rely on my assistance. The letter, if you please.” With a smart click of his heels and a hasty “servant, ma’am”, Leroy vanished round the corner. 

Josefina offered the other woman an apologetic smile. “We do have abundant food for dinner. I don’t know what the _guerilleros_ usually eat round the campfire, but perhaps you’d like to join us.” 

Teresa had fought the little war for less than a year, but she had learned never to say “no” to a free meal or any other gift, even though such offers often came with strings attached. “I’d be obliged,” she said and linked arms with Josefina. “And we eat what we can get. The campfire sounds very romantic. Our provisions are … less so.” 

The false countess gave a throaty laugh. “Most things in life are less romantic than they seem. Believe me, I know.” 

Their walk to Josefina’s house took them longer than Teresa had assumed. Her companion took small, mincing steps like an old woman. At times, she winced, as if she was in pain, especially when they climbed the stairs to her lodgings. Hers were very fine rooms, whose tasteful décor and rich furnishings reminded Teresa of the old Casa Moreno, before the war. She half-expected to see her mother’s favourite vase on the mantelpiece. 

Despite that resemblance, treading the polished floors in riding boots and sitting down at a richly decked table was an odd experience. Teresa felt as though she has returned to her childhood home to find that she was but a stranger there. All the while, Josefina made civil small-talk as if they’d met at a soirée in Lisbon instead of the edge of a battlefield: the daughter of a _hidalgo_ and a true noblewoman, not a partisan in men’s clothing and an elegantly clad impostor whose morals were as dubious as her ancestry. 

Each of Teresa’s non-committal replies seemed to her like the clever punchline to an elaborate joke. Josefina’s table manners were impeccable, too, until her fork screeched a scratch into her plate and her knife slipped from her hand. Sighing, she bent down, rather awkwardly, to fish for it under the table. 

The beautiful lace shawl slipped from her honey-coloured shoulders. Teresa glimpsed half-healed wounds on once flawless skin. The bloody welts appeared faintly familiar. “The shape of flogging scars,” she realized and drew in a sharp breath. 

The blood rose in her cheeks as she remembered the ridges on Richard’s back. Old scars, healed long ago, which she only noticed as she pressed her hands against his naked shoulder blades to draw him nearer. The ones that ran down Josefina’s neck and vanished under her collar looked pretty fresh. 

Her hostess had noticed her stare. Josefina’s face was just as red as hers. “The honourable gentlemen Gibbons and Berry,” she spat. 

Teresa found herself reddening further, albeit for a very different reason. She could not deny the sting of jealousy that had plagued her when she saw this stunning beauty draw the eyes of all men in the company. Still, she had promised to look after her, but she had not made good on her word. 

“I’m sorry that I was not there,” she said clumsily. “To hinder them, I mean.” 

To her astonishment, Josefina laughed shrilly and waved a dainty hand. “I had half a camp of men appointing themselves my protectors, and you’re the one to apologize? You know indeed what happens when soldiers run wild, don’t you?” 

This time, Teresa gestured at her to keep talking. “It … it could have been even worse, I suppose,” Josefina said. “Captain Leroy and Captain Sharpe broke it up in time. Sharpe wanted to call them out, but they died at Talavera.” A sarcastic smile twitched in the corners of her luscious mouth. “Again, duels are very romantic. But battles are more practical.” 

“To Talavera then,” Teresa said, filling Josefina’s glass. “And to our fallen heroes, Lieutenants Berry and Gibbons. May their death have been glorious, painful, and prolonged.” 

“I’ll drink to that,” her companion said and downed the glass in a single gulp. As the scarlet droplets ran from her lips and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, she did not appear particularly genteel. 

They lapsed into silence. Teresa wondered if she could somehow bring up Sharpe, now that Josefina had mentioned him first. Perhaps she should seize the chance and excuse herself to go to the hospital…

“—to Lisbon,” Josefina said loudly, interrupting that train of thought. A little quieter, she repeated: “I’ll leave town tomorrow. Captain Leroy has offered to accompany me to Lisbon.” 

“Good.” Teresa nodded. “You shouldn’t tarry.” 

The countess laughed. “Is there a special reason why you want to be rid of me?” she said with a coquettish toss of her head. 

“None that’s especially amusing. It’s in the note to Major Hogan. If he’s an intelligence officer worth his pay, he probably knows already.” Teresa washed down the last bites with a mouthful of wine. “There’s a French army massing near Plasencia, or that’s what I’ve heard. It’ll take them some days to get here, but Wellesley and Cuesta will both take their troops south of the river, I suppose.” 

And abandon those too ill to walk or be half-carried to imprisonment, she thought. She had to discreetly ask Leroy about Sharpe’s health once the captain returned from headquarters. Since he was not yet back, he was either busy discussing the evacuation plans or giving another speech in the officers’ mess. Teresa muttered an indistinct curse, and Josefina laughed again. 

“Exactly,” she said. “I will be even gladder to see the last of this country. Portugal, too. I’m sick of the war. Maybe I’ll go to England with the captain.” 

She eyed the last bottle of wine and proceeded to down another glass. Her speech was as clear and musical as ever. “His family’s quite rich, you know, though they gave up their lands in the colonies and lost some trade to the abolitionist fad.” Josefina drowned those concerns in the dregs from the bottle. 

“If I can’t be the actual wife of a count in the Old World, I shall make a decent mistress for a merchant from the New World. Good-bye, Lisbon; all hail London. Like a stray cat from the docks, I land on my feet.” There was a certain feline grace in Josefina’s smooth movements, in the sweep of her eye-lids, and the purr of her voice. “My apologies. Have I shocked you?” 

“No,” Teresa replied truthfully, although she didn’t mention that the old _señorita_ de Moreno might have been. 

It was one thing to choose a gallant if your husband was old or infirm or abominable, but you still needed a ring on your finger to keep up the appearance of respectability. But since an entire company had noticed her sneaking in and out of Richard’s tent, she was not much concerned with appearances anymore. Public morals were another casualty of the war, as the preachers were not tired of reminding their flock, she conceded with a small grin. 

The war had changed a lot of things. An English governess could become the real countess of Mouromorto, and a Virginian captain in the British army could take a pretend _condesa_ from the Peninsula as his paramour. The daughter of a well-respected family from noble stock might lose her place in the world, and the son of a tippling prostitute from a small-town orphanage might make his. Indeed, change was the only constant ever since little Inés de Flóres had cried during her name day celebration because they cut off the French king’s head, or since that cadet from Corsica crowned himself Emperor on the eve of María’s debutante ball. 

“There are far more shocking things in war,” Teresa added eventually, trying to peel an orange with blunt nails. Josefina handed her a knife. “Aren’t you ever tired of the war?” she asked. 

It must be the wine that made Teresa speak so frankly. “Always,” she said. “Never. I will not give up on Spain as long as the French are here.” How long that would be, no one could say, although an allied counter-offensive looked more likely after Talavera. She fell silent and savoured the sweetness of the fruit that filled her mouth.

Dabbing at her own juice-smeared lips with a crisp napkin, Josefina gave that purring chuckle again, sounding slightly tipsy at last. “You’re a veritable Joan of Arc, aren’t you?” She paused. “Though she was French. And a witch. She also died at the hands of the English, so that’s where the comparison ends.” 

“I was a witch, up in Galicia,” crossed Teresa’s mind. She drank the last of wine in a private toast to Stefano’s memory. As she put down her glass, she noticed Josefina’s pensive stare, a steadfast gaze from somewhat glassy eyes. 

“I see why you appeal to his romantic side,” Josefina mumbled. “Not that I know him well…“ It would be silly to pretend that she had no idea what the countess was talking about, so Teresa merely said: “Didn’t we agree things are less romantic than they seem? I do not put honour before reason.” (“As he put a French Eagle before me,” she thought.) 

Josefina replied with a polite, acquiescent smile that remained entirely unconvinced. “I suppose you know of this, but Sharpe’s awake. I talked to him earlier.” 

Teresa nodded, struggling to contain the idiotic grin that tugged at her lips and the surge of warmth that suffused her body, a sudden sweetness richer than oranges or wine. “It makes everything more complicated,” she told herself. She should not care so much. She should not want, but want she did. 

***

When she saw Richard again, alive and mostly well, Teresa did not talk to him about her wants, hopes, and fears. “So you lived,” was the most effusive greeting she could muster. The mutual confession that neither of them wanted to be alone had to stand in for sweeter declarations of sentiment. 

Just like at their last meeting, they talked with their bodies when words would not serve, but that time, their hands spoke a different language than their tongues. Their conversation was a little prickly and proud, and yet their touch turned patient and tender, instead of heated and rough. It was because of his half-healed wound, they agreed. Teresa kissed the puckered stitches and shiny red flesh along the gash left by a French sabre. 

Sharpe would depart with the rest of the troops later, after their quiet, grey dawn hour was past and the blazing sun dispersed the morning mist. 

“Find me again,” he said in good-bye. “Doesn’t take a great spy to spot Nosey’s army.” 

“I will try.” Teresa smiled, so she would not make any other promise she might regret. 

He gave her a boost up into the saddle. Pressing her heels into the flanks of her horse, she was off with a last, perfunctory wave, and the dust of Extremadura’s dirt roads swallowed her. 

The sweltering heat of those summer days was oppressive. In the glare of a pitiless August sun, the struggle along the southern mountains turned sluggish and stale. Fighting the little war had never been about clear-cut triumphs and disasters, Teresa mused, only about needling the enemy until the French bled dry from a thousand tiny pinprick wounds. 

During the height of summer, when the parched earth cracked and brooks ran barren, it was hard to sustain the partisans’ enthusiasm for surviving yet another day. The dirt settled in their clothes, their hair, their eyes, their very breaths, and her men slouched about, coughing and cranky. It certainly did not help that in retrospect, the victory at Talavera seemed almost in vain. 

The new Lord Wellington’s army had retreated west of the Portuguese border, a brutal march that started with thousands of boots stomping on sun-baked ground, sending pebbles flying and raising an enormous cloud of dust. Then they were gone. _Los ingleses_ left behind a poor country with even less food to spare, and embittered Spanish generals fighting their own battles. Fighting – and losing. 

Sometimes, Teresa longed for Sharpe and Major Vivar, or even Major Hogan, to discuss strategy and politics. The _guerrilleros_ under her command should not know of her doubts concerning the sorry state of the Anglo-Spanish alliance. It’d been difficult enough to talk Capitán Garcia into acting as one of Hogan’s agents. She did not want to unravel all her hard work: the news of such defeats as the one near Almonacid might have the same effect, though without her doing. 

Perhaps it was the talk about General Venegas’s losses that provoked one of their latest recruits. Personally, Teresa was more inclined to blame the casks of oversweet cream Sherry they’d stolen from a French baggage train. Whatever the reason for his outburst, he began to curse the British army one afternoon, during their mid-day rest, and proceeded to besmear Teresa’s honour. 

“Them English,” he ranted, “they’re sitting yonder, in Portugal, living like kings, while we’re half-starving. No wonder after they made off with our food. They should bugger off to where they came from, those cowardly _pajeros_ , but they’re too busy buggering each other. Or fucking our women.” 

He threw Teresa a suggestive glance, and she pressed her lips into a thin, humourless smile. She opened her mouth to calm him down. Before she managed to get in a word edgewise, the fool continued. 

“Haven’t you been spreading your legs for one, _comandante_?” Never before, not even during the grimmest jokes in Galicia, had the title sounded like an insult. “Laid on your back and gave it up for some _inglés_ di—“ 

He didn’t see the knife coming until it was too late. As the stiletto slashed two deep cuts across his cheeks, one on each side, he reached for his blade. Teresa pressed her knife firmly against his throat. “Don’t,” she said calmly. “Don’t push your luck. Just be glad it was your face, and not your squinting eyes or filthy tongue. Give me your weapons, and get out of my sight.” 

Wildly, the man looked around for assistance, but there was none forthcoming, not after he had made an utter fool out of himself. Some of the partisans chuckled, a couple of men started arguing who could lay claim to his horse, and a few hooted obscenities as he hobbled into the wilderness of rocks, ravines, and _matorral_. Teresa watched him until he was a tiny speck amongst the shrubland. She kept her knife and gun within reach the whole time, turning away from the men to hide her shaking hands. There was no more grumbling after that, at least not within her earshot. When she took her leave from the partidas to visit the British encampment near Campo Maior, Captain Garcia guffawed and clapped her back. 

Although she did not worry about her reputation, she fretted about the lack of word from Major Hogan. Contrary to all hopes, an offensive against the French did not seem imminent. Wellington’s troops were firmly entrenched near the border garrison and made no move to budge any time soon. Teresa reminded herself sternly that, whatever her doubts about their present orders, she bore the individual men no ill will. 

She was lingering at the outskirts of their camp, deep in an argument with an unfamiliar sentry from the South Essex, when a breezy voice told him to stand down. 

“Aren’t you Sharpe’s Spanish lady?” the lanky fellow in an officer’s neatly tailored coat said, and promptly burped. “Pardon, ma’am. Lieutenant Harold Price, at your service. _Encantado, señorita._ ” 

His sweeping bow would have impressed her more if he hadn’t had trouble to stand up straight afterwards. The smell of alcohol hit her like a brickwall. Teresa did not know whether to laugh or wrinkle her nose in distaste, so she settled for thanking him politely. 

“I can escort you,” he said, enunciating somewhat too clearly. “But he’s still engaged. Though, fortunately for you, not to be married,” Lieutenant Price added, chuckling at his wit. “He’s overseeing shooting practice. Our brigadier is keen on drills and discipline, you see.” 

“Shouldn’t you be there, too?” she asked. “I’d hate to keep you from your duty.” 

“Oh, well,” Price hid another burp behind a limp hand, “theoretically speaking, I should join them. In fact, they sent me away. Said I was just as likely to hit our men instead of the target. I’d call them out for their infamy, but the duelling code doesn’t agree with my peaceful disposition.” 

Teresa did laugh out loud, which didn’t bother the lieutenant in the slightest. “Unlike army life?” she teased. 

“Unlike army life,” he said earnestly. For all his drunkenness, Price found his way through the maze of tents and bivouacs pretty fast. “You have got company, you lucky sod,” he called to Sharpe, who just dismissed a group of infantrymen that looked rather glad to see the last of their muskets for the day. 

“Who are you calling a sod, Harry?” he shouted, but when he turned, his face lit up. “Teresa…” 

Lieutenant Price saluted her, albeit a bit wobbly. “I take my leave, _bonita Teresa mia_ ,” he said and bowed to kiss her hand. With another man, Teresa would have raised her brows at that sort of behaviour, but Harry Price, she decided, was mildly droll, rather harmless, and above all, very, very drunk. 

“I get a warm welcome here,” she said. “I seem to have options among your officer corps…” 

Richard laughed. “You’d take up with a bloke who can’t hold his bloody liquor?” he said, but he kissed her hand, too, his warm lips lingering too long for a mere courtesy. 

“Did you really send him off because he’d hit your men at target practice?” she asked, fascinated. 

He shrugged. “Shoot himself in the foot, more like. Harry’s actually a decent officer when he’s sober. Which is rare. And he’s a pretty good one when he’s just a mite drunk, but not too drunk. That’s even rarer. But keep your options open – just don’t lend him money.”

Teresa snorted. “I’m short of funds myself. The French couriers have become much more careful with their coin. It looks like I have to stay with you after all.” 

“You do that,” he agreed and half-crushed her in his embrace. Someone behind them whistled loudly, but Teresa was far too busy to crane her neck. 

That was her first visit at Campo Maior, the first of several, and she enjoyed them, though she got to spend less time with Richard than either of them wished. More often than not, they made do with idle talks on a rickety bench, or with stolen kisses behind a tree. For an army that did nothing but wait, everyone seemed paradoxically rather busy, and rather tired, beaten down by the infernal weather. 

Nonetheless, plenty of folks had a friendly smile to spare for Teresa: while Major Hogan made himself scarce, she could scarcely escape the company of Harry Price, drunk or not. The lieutenant would carry on his mock courtship with exaggerated compliments, which became more coherent when he was sobering up and more interesting when he had a few. At some point, Sharpe would scowl, or Teresa would shake her head, and then he flew in pretend fear. 

The riflemen, some of whom she remembered from the mission at Torrecastro, always gave her a salute as smart as they could be bothered with, and she would have taken their sergeant for the kindliest man on Earth if she hadn’t seen Harper fight. She and the Irish soldier had liked each other ever since she untied his hands, back when he faced court martial, and he played an off-key reel for her. 

It was easy to imagine Harper as the whistling hostler at some inn, or the chatty publican behind the counter in the barroom. Yet, she was grateful for his marksmanship and his bull-headed bravery, which didn’t stand in the way of his shrewdness and common sense. Once the South Essex fought again – as sooner or later, they would – it would reassure Teresa that Captain Sharpe marched into battle with Sergeant Harper at his side. 

Although not everybody was as glad to see her as Patrick Harper, they were unfailingly polite. She remarked upon that to the flock of army wives, who were scrubbing dirty laundry on the banks of the Guadiana. 

One of the women – a sun-burned Polly, Sally, or Nelly – giggled. “That’s because they’re afraid of Mr Sharpe, miss. They look at you wrong, and who knows what happens.” 

Teresa pulled a face. “They should be afraid of me, too,” she said, and the washer-woman giggled some more. “We’ve heard they call you the Needle, over in Spain. It’s not for stitching on buttons, is it? – Still, take it as a compliment, sort of. Everyone knows he’s a wee bit mad about you.” 

“Mad, he certainly is,” Teresa muttered under her breath. The women greeted the pronouncement with cackling laughter. 

“Pardon me, miss,” Sally-or-Nelly asked, “but seeing as Mr Sharpe’s still in the mess, have you got a moment to spare? We’ve tried to get provisions from the locals round here, for army rations can be a tad wanting, if you catch my drift. They diddle us out of our men’s wages, or so we think. The bargaining would be a lot easier if we knew us some more Spanish, or Portugue, than ‘ _mas vino_ ’ or ‘ _no, gracias, senor, soy casada_ ’.” 

“You want me to teach you?” With a shrug of her shoulders, Teresa settled in the shelter of a leafy chestnut tree, stretching her long legs between drying shirts and dirt-encrusted breeches. Again, she suspected that this was to become a lesson Miss Caroline would not approve of. “What do you need to say?” 

Their impromptu lessons did not get very far, though: the next time she made it to the campground, Sharpe himself awaited her at the end of the road, looking as though he hadn’t slept properly for several nights. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes and yawned. 

“You have officers on picket duty now?” she said in way of greeting. 

“Aye, I volunteered. Half the battalion’s sick with Guadiana fever,” he replied, swaying a little in her arms. “You can’t stay here, Teresa. Every other man has it – and the baggage train, too. Knowles’s youngest died three days ago, and his wife last night.” 

With a pang, Teresa wondered if that woman had chorused Spanish phrases together with the rest on the banks of that pestilent river. “What about your men?” she asked.

“The Chosen Men have all had it. Most are on the mend. Hagman’s poorly, since he’s getting on a bit, but he’ll recover. Tongue’s dead, in spite of all his prayin’. Or, as Harper reckons, the Lord loved his god-damn bible-thumping so much he wanted to listen to it all day. More than you could say about us, but that’s not what we meant by getting rid of it.” 

Richard scratched his stubbly chin and leaned gratefully against her shoulder. 

“Harper’s fine – he’s got the constitution of an ox. Perhaps it’s the brandy he shares with Harry Price. Harry has this theory, says there ain’t enough room for dangerous mi- miasmas if you’re full of brandy.” 

“And what about you?” Teresa whispered, rubbing her cheek against the stubble. He flashed her a sardonic grin that twisted the pale scar under his eye. “Me? I’m too plain mean. I scare off Frogs _and_ fever. But I can’t wait to leave this bloody place. We lost a company’s worth of men since we came here, not counting wives and whores and kids.” 

Under any other circumstances, Teresa might not have resisted the temptation to point out that the army simply needed to return to Spain, but this was no laughing matter. “I am sorry, Richard,” she said and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Take care.” 

She turned to go, but he caught her by the arm. “Is that a proper farewell kiss?” he said. “I’m not dying.” 

Teresa laughed. “No, thank goodness, but you _are_ a sentry.” 

“One kiss,” he begged before he remembered that Captain Richard Sharpe did not beg for anything. “Wouldn’t dream of anything else on duty, you know me better than that. But we won’t see each other for a while, now will we?” 

Teresa silently thanked God and His angels that Napoleon’s field marshals were far, far away from the Portuguese border, or she might have caused both dereliction of duty and a surprise attack on the encampment. She, for one, would have been hard-pressed to notice anyone sneaking up on them for a few minutes. Their kiss went on until they gasped for breath, turned into one more, then another couple, and she was lost to the world until she pried herself loose. 

“Duty calls,” she said. “I hope all will be well.” 

Another visit to Campo Maior was put off till the sweltering summer had given way to November rain and the trees, save the evergreen oaks of the Alentejo, were shedding their leaves. The year was as good as over, and so was the alliance between Britain and Spain. Teresa rode into the camp with a knot of anger curled tightly her stomach. The dispatches from Ocaña were fresh on her mind: never had the Spanish Army been thus humiliated, and Wellington sat in Portugal still. She did not hesitate to rub Major Hogan’s snuff-stuffed nose in it. 

The intelligence officer spread his hands in a placating gesture. “What would you like me to do, _comandante_? I can give your men weapons and money, but I can hardly force his Lordship at gunpoint to change his battle plans for you.” 

“Which battle plans?” she shouted. “There are no battle plans, _¡joder!_ , and that’s the problem!” 

Hogan barely batted a lid at her outburst. “You wildly overestimate my influence. I do have the general’s ear, but I’m a small cog in a big and slow machine. There’s Whitehall, Horseguards, the diplomats, and dozens of counsellors. You can take my offer, or leave it. Suit yourself.” 

“Of course, I’ll take the guns and the money,” she said, though it came out as a hiss. “I never look a gift horse in the mouth, even if it’s got the heaves.” If the tent had had a door instead of a flap, she’d have banged it shut as she stormed out, right into Richard’s waiting arms.

“Aren’t you checking on the pickets?” she snapped. 

“I was, but I’m off duty now, so I followed your voice. You could give Pat’s drill sergeant routine a run for his money. If you’d yelled a tad louder, even King Joseph in Madrid would have heard.”

“He’s not the king,” she said and continued, though she already saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. “But if your general doesn’t do a thing, he shall stay in Madrid, and lord it over the rest of Spain.” 

“ _My_ general?” Sharpe took her by the elbow and all but marched her behind a skew-whiff tool shed. “Are you expecting me to pick a fight about the man who raised me from the ranks?” 

His low growl, almost a whisper, was more furious than outright shouting, and his glare would bring any private to stand to attention. Teresa, however, had met him when even a handful of riflemen balked at his orders. So she returned his stare until her eyes burned, and she did not say a word.

It was impossible to guess who broke the deadlock first and looked away. Richard loosened his grip and dropped his hand from her arm as though he’d burned himself. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” 

She shook her head. “My pride hurts a little, but it’s not your fault. I am angry, yes, but you’re not to blame, either. You follow orders, and that’s where your loyalties lie. Do you understand where mine are?” 

“Yes,” he breathed. “You haven’t got a general, but you have Spain.” Gingerly, he stretched out his hand to cup her cheek, smiling slightly as she leaned into the touch. “If you can share me with Wellington, can I have my share of you?” 

He kissed her into the wall of the shed, then slid slowly down her body to drop to his knees before her. He looked like a penitent sinner in church or a nobleman before the erstwhile Queen María Luisa, though that notion quickly vanished from Teresa’s mind as he fumbled with her belt. What followed was neither godly nor courtly, and she could not have cared less. Her head dropped back, hitting the wooden planks with a painful thud, but that wasn’t the reason why her vision went white for a few moments. She stuffed her fist into her mouth and bit down hard to stifle her screams. 

Week-kneed and flushed, she walked out of the camp, trying very hard to appear stoic and stern-faced when Major Hogan crossed their path. Looking at Richard’s sly grin from the corner of her eye did not help matters. “See, that’s a proper farewell kiss,” he mumbled as they came to her horse. 

“I will keep it in mind for next time,” she said. 

The next time she passed by Campo Maior, the plain was deserted. Only the trampled grass, the dried manure, and a forgotten uniform jacket, flashing a faded red from a thorny hedge, remained. Wellington’s army had marched – further into Portugal. 

***

As she crossed the Spanish border again, soaked to the skin by a persistent drizzle, Teresa decided to call on Don Rafael at Badajoz. The partisans would not miss her if she needed a few days more on her way back. Winter rarely was a campaigning season, not even that far south. Content with their recent triumphs, the French confined themselves to garrisons and towns full of _afrancesados_.

The detour was entirely in vain. “The don’s not here,” the housekeeper bellowed, eyeing Teresa’s mud-splattered riding garb contemptuously. She would have shut the door in her face if Teresa hadn’t quickly put a boot-clad foot over the threshold. 

“Is he?” she asked. “If he should make a miraculous reappearance, you can tell him Teresa de Moreno wants to see him. – I’m his niece.” 

The fat woman with the iron-grey curls laughed, her voluminous breasts bouncing under the apron. “And I’m Empress Joséphine. Look, _señorita_ , whoever you are, Don Rafael isn’t in town. If you’re really family, you should know the don just got married. He’s spending Christmas with Doña Lucia’s relatives.” 

Teresa did not insist on gaining entrance. “Very well. Can you recommend a decent inn in Badajoz? I’m not travelling over Christmas, not in this weather. ”

The housekeeper narrowed her eyes, still full of suspicion, but the jingle of coins convinced her of Teresa’s solvency, though not her respectability. “The Orange Tree behind the cathedral square is decent enough. There’s plenty of food and few fleas; it’s round the corner, and the owner’s married to my godmother’s youngest. It’ll do.” And she closed the door with a bang, nearly crushing Teresa’s toes. 

Cursing, Teresa limped over the slippery cobblestones till she found the nearby inn. Christmas at the Orange Tree, within the grey bulwarks of Badajoz, was but another dreary day. Light-headed, feverish, and tired, she committed the grave offence of foregoing the midnight mass once more: even kindly Father Pedro would have labelled that a mortal sin. 

All the bells in the city, from the cathedral’s dull and sombre tones to a tinkling peal from a nearby convent chapel, kept her from her rest. Wrapped tightly in her blanket, Teresa stared out the darkened window, where another late churchgoer would scurry by, and saw the familiar _Nochebuena_ lights flare up in the neighbouring houses. The little flames behind the windowpanes danced in the dark, and she gazed at them till her head swam. Shivering, she crossed the room to draw the moth-eaten curtains. When she returned to bed, she pulled the covers up to her ears, shut out the sounds, and slept late into the following day. 

The new year of our Lord, Anno Domini 1810, brought as little good news as the past one – or just as much, depending on how you looked at it. If there was none for the patriotic cause, there was plenty for the French and their supporters. The occupation army received fresh reinforcements once again: while Teresa had been riding to and fro between Campo Maior and her partisans' encampment, the French Emperor forced the Austrian one into a new treaty of peace. 

So there was to be a new bride for Napoleon – Don Rafael’s housekeeper would have to get used to that – a new field marshal for the French command in Spain, and even a brand-new royal progress for the populace in the south. Seville had fallen, Andalusia with it, and the Spanish government sat under siege in Cádiz, for where should they run to after reaching the sea? 

The man Teresa refused to call king did not only lord it over Spain from his stolen throne in Madrid. Joseph had the gall, she thought, to let himself be fêted in Spain’s cities as their saviour! “The womenfolks cry and kiss his feet,” one of the men round their campfire reported, and she could not tell if he was astonished or impressed. 

If you heard Capitán Garcia talk, though, Joseph Bonaparte might as well boast a set of horns, a twitching tail, and cloven hooves. Teresa did not point out that he was merely an upstart’s upstart brother. Some of the partisans were fascinated enough by the news of balls and fireworks, of _fiestas_ and bull fights in Joseph’s honour. They mysteriously vanished in the depth of night, never to return, stealing away to the banquets and revelries down south. 

Teresa and Garcia put up their most loyal _partidas_ on additional pickets, and that was the end of that. It helped, too, that they relieved several French companies of their supply wagons. Thanks to enough bread and smoked trout for the Feeding of the 5,000, the desertions stopped, but all the loaves and fish in the world could not convince Teresa that patriots and partisans weren’t hanging on by the skin of their teeth. 

From Wellington’s staff, there was no news at all. Neither did she hear from Sharpe. Was he really “a wee bit mad about her”, as the soldiers’ wives had claimed? Did he ever think of her, like Teresa thought of him, whether she willed it or not? 

The one person whose letters reached her unexpectedly was Major Vivar. God only knew how his couriers had found her. The messenger handed her more than one message: crumpled sheets stained with wine and tobacco. A quick glance at the spottiest letter told her it had been written in February. By now it was almost summer. Hastily, Teresa skimmed the notes. 

In the first few, Don Blas mostly complained: he lamented that he’d left word for her at her uncle’s, but Don Rafael hadn’t seen her of late – he resented the political intrigues plaguing Galicia and bemoaned the swelling number of bandits in the region, who committed theft and plunder under the guise of patriotism: “ _¡Viva Fernando!_ , they shout!” Major Vivar wrote, "but what those pilferers mean when they evoke the rightful king is, _¡vamos robando!_ Let’s go robbing…” He complained about the election process for the estates general in Cádiz, which granted too much influence to the commoners in some places (“Will those radicals let the women vote for deputies next?”), about the unrest in Spanish America, about everything and nothing. 

Teresa almost threw the letters into the fire when the last one caught her eye, accounting for Vivar’s excessive irritability: after a bout of illness and a long confinement, the new countess of Mouromorto had borne him an heir, a seven-month child. It was small and sickly at first, but both mother and son were eventually thriving. Don Blas had daily masses read in thanksgiving, and masses for the dead as well: one for Don César and Doña Antonia every Sunday, and for Stefano, too, on holidays. Above all, he praised God for his wife’s and boy’s good health. 

She folded up the messages and stuffed them into her saddlebags before her men could use them for kindling or to wipe their buttocks. Poor Louisa – the title of _condesa_ could not spare her from bringing forth children in sorrow. After meeting Sharpe, Teresa had sometimes wondered if she would conceive and what she would do if that were the case. Maybe the French soldiers had left her with yet another scar inside, making her as barren as the land they plundered and taking one more thing from her. There was no one she could ask about those matters. (For a moment, she imagined Vivar’s face and permitted herself a wry smile.) 

Teresa did not know whether the thought left her furious or disappointed or secretly relieved… She could barely imagine older children, shadowy figures without a face, whose father taught them to wield a rifle and shoot hares, or whom their mother swung up on a horse, holding them tight so they would never fall. But giving birth to a small, squealing infant in this madhouse that was Spain, that was a picture her imagination balked at. 

She shook her head and reached for some pages that the count had left half blank. Instead of musing on such irrelevancies, she should use the paper for further notes on French troop movements. The steady stream of Masséna’s soldiers on their advance to the west was followed by an equally steady stream of couriers towards the _ingleses_ and the Lusitanian Army.

Teresa knew of the tens of thousands of men waiting for the French, but beyond that, she had little intelligence from Portugal. Hogan acknowledged her messages with a brief reply, an almost illegible scrawl on blotted parchment, requesting every piece of information about the French positions that her men could possibly get. So at least the agents hadn’t gone lost or, worse, turned traitors. But Hogan himself had duties in Lisbon, he wrote, just as important as “knowing a bit about the other fellow”. Indeed the major seemed out of Teresa’s reach. 

His strange silence preyed on Teresa’s mind: the French columns seemed endless. Although the exact number of their opponents was beyond her grasp, Masséna’s army was a veritable colossus on the march, a giant that could crush them under an iron heel. If Portugal was reoccupied, all might be lost – and men like silly Harry Price, faithful Patrick Harper, and her Richard Sharpe with it. Of course, the almighty giant could have feet of clay, which would topple under its weight. 

Teresa’s group of partisans moved slightly northwards again, into the granite massive of the Sierra de Gata, to follow the warfare along the border more closely. What they saw did not convince anyone that the French behemoth was a false idol rather than possessed of a god-like power. In July, Ney took Ciudad Rodrigo after a mere three weeks of siege, pushed back the allied forces across the Côa (had Sharpe, too, raced for the bridge amidst a thunderstorm?), and moved on to Almeida. If – or when – that fortress surrendered, the road to Portugal was free. Did Hogan know that about the French fellows, Teresa wondered.

On the day after the _partidas_ felt the ground tremble and saw a cloud of black smoke veil the evening sun, dark fumes rising sky high over Almeida's mountains, a Portuguese shepherd handed Teresa a message at last: a small piece of brown paper, folded over and over, addressed in bold letters drawn by a hesitant hand to _La Aguja_. 

**  
_iv. Quinta Nova – Plasencia – Badajoz: September 1810 – February 1811_  
**

The _señoritas_ de Moreno had slept in cozy beds, with duvets of eiderdown and sheets of clean, starched linen. Those had never looked as inviting as the simple pallet in the inn at Quinta Nova. Early autumn in these mountains was usually warm, though rather wet, but a strong gale had been scouring the region for days. The skin of her fingers was cracked, raw, and bleeding. 

Any French troops out in the open must be shivering, too. Teresa hoped the bastards cursed the weather as much as she did. When the rains set in, Portugal might drown them in torrential rivers and sudden mudslides. Then snow would freeze them to death, the winter an even colder killer than she ever was. The thought made their room look twice as homely: while some French calvalry were nearly swept off their horses outside, she and Richard would enjoy a hearty meal in their bellies and a decent vintage the innkeeper had dug up from his cellar. 

“I sell only bad wine to the French,” he’d said in his heavily accented Spanish.

Sharpe laughed. “Now there’s a patriot. Victory by rotgut. If war worked that way, th’ British army would’ve been beaten long ago.” 

Teresa edged closer to the small fire in the hearth, so close she nearly singed the hem of her coat; she jumped back, dropping the garment to the floor. She’d gotten rid of her boots already and wriggled her toes. When the warmth coursed through her body, her jacket, shirt, and breeches followed, and she shook her hair loose. The braids had been coiled tightly, pinned with so many needles that her scalp hurt. With a happy sigh, she let herself fall back on the bed, fanning her hair and spreading her arms wide, as though to embrace the days of unexpected freedom. 

Richard cocked an eyebrow. “Is that an invitation?” 

She smiled languidly. “I believe it was you who invited me here,” she said. 

His message rested in her breast pocket, where it lay above her heart. Teresa had received many a sophisticated _billet doux_ , full of flowery prose and quotes from poetry, the paper rich and the handwriting impeccable. If she hadn’t burned them right away, they were all destroyed with her father’s house. That loss never hurt her. Strange how she could not bear to toss away this little sheet of paper, spelling out a terse request to meet him, the overly careful block letters clearly the work of an uneducated man. 

“Now that some idiot blew up our own bloody fortress,” Richard said, “I’ll be off to the coast. I’ve only got a few days, then it’s back to join the very last of our rearguard.” 

He drew his shirt over his head, muffling the words that followed. “I hoped you’d be around. Once we fall back, there’s no tellin’ when we’ll meet again. The French will keep us on our toes, but still – winter will be damn cold and lonely.” 

If he was hiding his sentiments under that piece of clothing, this suited Teresa well. She’d heard a trace of longing in his voice: it was such a relief that he could not see her glowing cheeks or spy the hidden fears deep in her heart. “Soft! I am going soft,” she thought, almost angrily. The questions that slipped her tongue angered her more, yet she couldn’t help asking them. 

“Will it?” she replied, raising an eyebrow herself. “Have you got no one to keep your billet warm?”

He grinned, like a mischievous boy who had tied a wooden rattle to a kitten’s tail. “I’ll be damned. Are you jealous, Teresa?” 

She shook her head and tried her most serious stare. It was hard to keep a straight face as he lay down beside her and drew a blanket over them both. She yelped when his cold feet slipped between her calves, and he pressed an apologetic kiss to her temple. 

“Oh, you are, aren’t ya?” Richard chuckled. “Let me see. Last Christmas, we had a pretty young lass in our quarters. Rosy skin, smooth cheeks, big brown eyes – ouch!” 

Turning her back to him, Teresa had elbowed him in the ribs. Hard. 

“Jealousy, the green-eyed – green-eyed – beast? Devil? No, monster. Jealousy, the green-eyed monster,” he declared most seriously. It nearly earned him another playful punch, but Teresa’s curiosity got the better of her. 

“Isn’t that from your English poet, Mr Shakespeare?” Miss Caroline should be proud of her for remembering the quote. “I didn’t think you had much use for poetry.” 

“Nah, I don’t. But it’s right boring to sit on our arses day after day.” He pressed his hips against her buttocks, as if to emphasize his last remark, and Teresa eased into his embrace. “Some folks from the officers’ mess thought drama’s better for morale than drinking or whoring. We got scenes from Shakespeare for Christmas. And from your Spanish poet. Th’one with the knight and the windmills.” 

“Cervantes,” she added, trapping his wandering hand in a firm grip. “You might like him. He was a soldier, too. Well, a sailor. He served in our Navy and fought against the Turks.” 

Richard’s laughter vibrated against her back. “Harris didn’t mention that. Typical. He just went on and on about his bleedin’ novels. So we had Shakespeare, and senhor Cervantes.” 

He made an exaggerated pause worthy of a comedian at the Teatro de la Cruz. 

“And Young Perkins made a very pretty lass,” he continued. “Harper gave him a proper shave until his face was smooth like a baby’s bottom. Didn’t take long, of course. Then we dressed him up in Sally Clayton’s skirts and Sunday hat. He was the darlin’ of the entire regiment.” 

The mental image made Teresa laugh. “Will you miss me?” he whispered into her hair. “And did you really think there’s someone else?” She turned her head and gave him a Sphinx-like smile before she captured his mouth in a kiss. 

They made love three times that night, now that they had time and privacy: nobody had to shake straw from their breeches afterwards; their mattress, worn-down as it was, was more pleasant to lie upon than a greatcoat on the naked earth; since they weren’t stuck in the middle of an army camp, they could be as loud as they wanted. 

Since she had joined the partisans, she’d become used to living most of her life under the open sky, from sleeping and eating to washing and shitting. That didn’t mean, though, that she wanted to share everything. Some things she preferred to keep to herself, like the way he said her name.

He pronounced it the English way – Te-ray-sa – and he made it sound unique in other ways, too. When he begged her to ride him harder, it sounded remarkably obscene, but before he kissed her, he said it with reverence. Teresa did not want anyone to listen in on this; nor did she want them to overhear the Spanish endearments she spoke softly in the dark, and which he pretended not to understand, for her sake. 

Apart from such sighs and sweet nothings, they did not talk much at first. The stillness turned into a companionable, sleepy silence. Teresa pillowed her head on his chest. She fell asleep to Richard’s even breaths and strong heartbeat. Before she drifted off into unremembered dreams, she thought vaguely that this was the first time they literally slept together. She smiled into his skin, and she still felt like smiling when they awoke to the sound of rain.

The gale threw a patter of hail against the window, a rare occurrence even in this season. Teresa pictured a group of French soldiers on the inhospitable roads, and smiled wider. They only left their snug room briefly, to purchase bread, cheese, and olives from the landlord, and settled comfortably back into bed. 

Listening to the wind, the downpour, and the crackling flames, they could not keep their hands off each other, without any urgency or intent behind their touch: she lightly ran her hand over his side, grinning foolishly as he flinched from the tickle and rained dozens of light kisses on her face and throat and neck. 

As the hours passed, the touches grew less frequent, and the words gradually returned. By an unspoken agreement, neither mentioned skirmishes or battles, tactics or strategy, or the threats that loomed in Portugal. Teresa’s last Christmas had been dark and devoid of cheer, and she saw no reason to assume that the next celebration would be any more cheerful. So she asked Richard to tell her more about winter quarters and his company. 

He shared mostly harmless gossip from the regiment: Mrs Grimes was big with child again – old Hagman, who believed in more superstitions than there were devils in hell, got cheated out of half a month’s wages by some fortune-teller – what happened last December, during Colonel Lawford’s rousing rendition of Othello’s death scene. 

“He didn’t skip one line during his part, and he’d made such a fuss about Shakespeare this, Shakespeare that, and honouring the bloody Swan of – of – somewhere. If I didn’t owe him so much, I’d have clocked him one.” 

Richard grinned. 

“So he’s on our stage, with his dead woman on a bed an’ all, and Lawford’s getting dramatic about kissing her and stabbing himself, and keels over, very convincing, mind – only he forgets where to die, and crashes the poor lad under him. Dead wife squeaks, ‘get off me, get off me, sir!’ Othello recovers for a bit, and dies again.” 

“Wasn’t very dramatic, mostly because everyone’s laughing so hard they almost shit themselves, even Harris, and Lawford storms off with a tirade about how nobody respects the bleedin’ arts. I had no idea Shakespeare was that funny.” 

Teresa wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. 

“I wish I’d seen it,” she said. “Did I ever tell you I played theatre, too? Father Pedro, our confessor, said it wasn’t proper. My parents didn’t mind too much as long as it was only María and me, the Flores children, and their cousins.” 

It struck her that this was also the first time she was talking freely about her life before the war. Of course, she had mentioned her family in passing before, or alluded matter-of-factly to some past event. Richard had never asked for anything more – not that she would have answered. 

Now, Teresa could not help thinking of what had become of her childhood companions. Had Inés married that horrid old suitor and moved with him to Cadíz, where she would be under siege from the French? Did Carlos earn the officer’s commission he had always yearned for? If so, was he still alive? 

She shook her head slightly, as though to drive away those morbid thoughts, and launched into the story of how she drew on a magnificent moustache with sooty cork. For one glorious night, she’d been Don Alonso, the Knight from Olmeida, competing with Don Rodrigo for the hand of the fair lady, Doña Inés. Then her parents found out: they decided it was indeed not quite appropriate to stride around the attic in a pair of borrowed breeches and duel her friend’s older brother with a wooden sword. 

“A knight, eh?” Richard smiled at her. Teresa wondered if she looked just as besotted when she gazed at him. “It suits you. Maybe you should wear my uniform – you’d make a better addition to the mess than me.” 

Teresa laid a finger on his lips and gave him a gentle kiss to stop him from pursuing that train of thought. At times, he brought up their difference in rank and standing. It did not bother her, for the old Teresa de Moreno had perished back in Medina, and she did not see why it should bother him. It had not been easy to win the respect of the _partidas_. She did not want to be reminded by Sharpe, of all people, that she belonged nowhere. 

“Shall I don your jacket?” she said sweetly. “Do you think milord Wellington would approve?” 

“Irregular – highly irregular, Sharpe,” Richard said in a passable imitation of the commander’s nasal voice. “Nah, I doubt it. The lads would be happy, though, to have the most beautiful captain in the whole bloody army.” 

“Flattery will not get you anywhere,” she muttered, even while she slung her arms around his neck and drew him towards her. In that hour, they both belonged in Quinta Nova and to each other.

On their last day in the village, the wet weather disappeared as quickly as it had come. With blue skies overhead and the green grass lush out of the damp soil, it seemed like a fine day in spring rather than September. 

Hidden among the trees, they walked the footpaths of Quinta Nova’s peasants and shepherds, their arms brushing lightly with each step. If Teresa hadn’t known better, she would not suspect that there was a half-destroyed fortress on the other side of the river, or a line of soldiers without end coming over the hills. For one morning, theirs was a world without war, a world that might have an ‘after’. One of them said it out loud, “after the war…”, and then fell silent. 

Once, Teresa remembered, she could not imagine a Spain at war, and then she did not allow herself to contemplate a future peace. Sharpe had been a soldier since he was sixteen or seventeen. He always joked, in a casual manner that was not funny at all, that he hoped to die in King George’s army. Should she join the baggage train with the army wives, follow him God knew where, and watch him die in some distant land? Would he stay in a strange country and wait for her to put her father’s estate back together? 

“After the war…,” the other repeated, and both started to smile. “We should make off with Boney’s war chest,” Richard suggested. “And go travelling,” Teresa said. She had never gone anywhere without her family; he had never made a journey without his regiment. For the rest of their walk, they roamed the world together, from the Americas to Australia, like children spinning a globe or flicking through an atlas, to dream of places far away. 

Later, when they took leave from one another, Richard heading off to rejoin his men and Teresa sneaking into Spain, neither of them looked back. 

***

It took Teresa too long to notice that anything was amiss. Perhaps she would have realized sooner if she’d had a confidante to talk to when the campfires died in a flicker and everyone started dreaming of home and the life they’d left behind. On such cold nights, with winter drawing ever nearer, she could not admit to her men how much she yearned for her family. 

It was as if September's tranquil interlude had broken her resistance once and for all: instead of hoping to erase their faces from her memory, shoving them away until a distant peace that might never come, she permitted herself to dwell upon her parents and her sister at length. 

At night, Teresa listened to her men’s worries about this autumn’s harvests they had missed and the presents they could buy with purloined gold. She debated the hopeful rumours of a French reverse on the way to Lisbon, and the curious ones of Portugal’s half-deserted countryside, the doors of empty churches gaping open and entire villages unoccupied. She smiled indulgently at Capitán Garcia’s crude jokes and joined the partisans in prayer. But she could not reminisce with them about the musty smell of her father’s library, about her mother’s nimble fingers on the strings of guitar and violin, about her little sister’s sweet tooth, or about Stefano's tales that frightened or delighted the children.

Even when there were women among the partisans, Teresa was feeling lonely. Those wives of peasants, daughters of servants, and sisters of artisans could not forget that _La Aguja_ had sat at laden tables and dressed in fashionable gowns of whitest silk. They were her occasional companions, but she doubted they were to be friends. Yet it was one of them, Rosita, a dirt-poor mountain girl from the Sierra de Gata, who told her what was wrong. 

“Better get yourself a stronger horse,” Rosa said in an off-handed way, as she was stoking the fire and stirring the soup. 

“What about my horse?” Teresa looked up from her maps and letters, startled. “Has she come up lame?” 

Rosa laughed, in love with her own cleverness. “Your horse is fine, right as rain. But she’ll soon carry a heavy load. Two folks, not one, _pobrecita_.”

Teresa stared, wondering if she had misheard the girl, who sometimes spoke in such a rustic manner that she failed to make herself understood. 

Very slowly and clearly, as if she was talking to an infant or the village idiot, Rosa said: “I was joking, _señorita_. Two people, you see – you and your child.” She pointed a wooden spoon straight at Teresa’s belly. 

“What child?” Teresa shot back, desperate to stave off the inevitable for another moment. “Soldiers do not need children.” 

“Women still have them, and there’s one on the way.” 

With a shrug, Rosita turned back to the kettle and dump a handful of chopped onions into the broth. 

“Trust me: I know what it looks like. My mother had ten of us. When I left, my sister was five months gone with her second. Me, I had one afore I ran away. She came early and didn’t live long.” 

A large blot of ink stained the end of her last message. Teresa would have to write it all over again, though she couldn’t afford to waste quills and paper. Carefully, she reached for a fresh sheet, but her mind would not stick to the inventory of supplies and soldiers. 

Each time she wanted to put the numbers down, her thoughts returned unbidden to the last few weeks: the exhaustion, the headaches and cramps, the countless times she’d crouched in the shrubbery to relieve herself. And that so soon after Quinta Nova…

“ _Madre de Dios_ ,” she said at last. 

Rosa regarded her with a softened expression. “You didn’t know?” 

“No – yes,” Teresa replied, in a tone that would brook no objection. “Yes, I did know. But I did not want to.” 

“Does everyone else know too?” she asked, after an uncomfortable pause. 

Her men took _La Aguja_ seriously, as she rode a horse as fast as any of them, aimed a pistol as accurately, and had dipped her blade in French blood to the hilt. However, she was not keen on reminding them she was a woman as well as a _guerrillera_. 

Rosita shook her head. “A few, I s’pose. I bet some of th’other women can tell. They’ll talk to their men. It won’t remain a secret forever, _señorita_. You can’t hide when you’ve got a belly the size of a watermelon, or when you’re brought to bed with _un bastardo inglés_.” 

Teresa flinched. “Until it’s starting to show, you will not blab about it.” She tried to speak as calmly as she could, to make this an order in the voice of Comandante Teresa instead of a confused woman’s plea. “I need time to think.” 

Mercifully, Rosa took the hint. “Mother worked in the fields till Juanito was born. If you’re strong and well, you’ll have your time. But don’t think too long. Six months or seven, and you got another think comin’.” 

After that, the girl said no more. They huddled close to the fire and ate the soup in silence.

Teresa could not stop thinking about Rosita’s words. She would not be able to ignore her condition for more than a few more weeks: what then? The last time she’d seen Richard, he had returned to his troops in Portugal. Her bastard had a father somewhere across the border, with the whole French army between them: Sharpe could have been home in England, or in the Indies, for all the difference it made. 

A father somewhere among the troops in Portugal – a father somewhere among the troops – Her own reaction came back to her, the anger redoubling in force: “Soldiers do not need children.” If a man decided he did not need children, what would keep him from accusing her of bedding every lecher on the Peninsula? 

“Richard would not do this,” she told herself, over and over. It had been easy to believe in love, in the glorious autumn of Quinta Nova, in the warmth of their bed, and the lull of a world without war. Many weeks later, with no word from Portugal, those days seemed but a distant dream, a Spain free from foreign armies and a foreign king an impossibility, a shared future a girlish folly. So she was to have a child without a father, perhaps. It was just as well that her parents were no longer alive to regret her lack of propriety. 

Every time she dressed herself, shivering in the morning air, Teresa eyed her stomach with increasing suspicion. Had she increased in girth? Was the skin tauter and curving outwards? On the morning she discovered a dark line running down from her navel, she knew she had to make a decision. 

During her stay among the partisans, she had learned to lie low, remain patient, and bide her time. But time was running out on her. Thrice she started a letter to her uncle in Badajoz, a childless widower, who had now married his young fiancée, a local girl not even half his age. Doña Lucia, Teresa’s new aunt, had no children yet. Would she agree to foster an infant of her husband’s relation? 

“I’m writing to my family,” she whispered to Rosita with a conspiratorial smile. “I am done waiting.” 

Rosa could not read, so she would not notice that none of Teresa’s messages was addressed to Don Rafael de Moreno. The fire consumed each of her drafts: Teresa remembered her uncle railing against foreign mercenaries on Spain’s sacred soil. He would hardly welcome her carrying some strange adventurer’s child or invite her to give birth to a bastard under his roof. 

She smiled at Rosita with genuine joy and went out riding to pass on her letters. On the way back, down the slippery footpath to their encampment, she spurred on her horse. The mare broke into a quicker trot, and Teresa had to use the whip in order to make her gallop. On this terrain, it was a matter of time until she would stumble, just a little, but this would be pretext enough – there it was! A small hesitation in the horse’s smooth movements, the moment when unfortunate accidents happened. 

Letting her feet slide from the stirrups, Teresa flung herself unto the half-frozen ground. The earth came rushing towards her. She had expected the fall to knock the wind out of her, but she was not prepared for the sudden pain that exploded in her head. “I’m no longer fine,” she thought in a rush of relief. Then she stopped thinking at all. 

***

In the darkness, she smelled horse sweat and gunpowder. A large, calloused hand gripped her shoulder. “Richard?” she whispered soundlessly. There was no reply. Amidst the pounding in her head, it crossed her mind that the French soldiers had come back to finish what they’d begun. They would kill her, and her sister, too. Teresa screamed. 

“Sssh,” a woman’s voice soothed her. “Hush now.” Teresa recognized it, but couldn’t place it. For a moment, she hoped it was her mother, telling her and María that everything would be all right, just like when they were little and took to bed with a bad tooth or a sore throat. Suddenly, she remembered _mamá_ was dead. 

She woke to a horrible headache, ringing ears, and the taste of bile. The room was full of glaring sunshine. Teresa blinked into the light. As she narrowed her eyes and squinted hard, her blurry vision cleared. She focused on the small figure in the corner of the sparsely furnished cell. What she saw momentarily confused her again. 

“María?” she asked. “Sor Dolores?” She was not surprised when the voice of an older woman, well past middle age, answered her. “No, I am Sor Agnes. Don’t talk too much. And don’t sit up, for Heaven’s sake!” 

Groaning, Teresa sank back into the bed. Obviously, this could not be her sister. María was miles and miles away, in – in – ensconced in Burgos’s gothic splendour. She would be a slip of a thing, clad in the white habit of the charterhouse, not the plump nun in the dark tunic, who was sitting by her bedside, and María would not say a word. 

“What happened?” Teresa closed her eyes again for an instant, attempting to collect her thoughts. “Where am I?” 

“In the Convent of Las Claras. – In Plasencia,” Sor Agnes added when Teresa cleared her parched throat to speak. “Those _guerrilleros_ and your servant girl brought you here. You fell and wouldn’t wake up.” 

“I … fell?” It would explain the pain which did not wreck only her head, but which throbbed in her left arm and leg as well.

“Took a nasty tumble from your horse. You should thank Santa Clara you got off so lightly. You have an ugly bump on your head. But you haven’t split your skull, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We set a broken bone in your arm. A clean break – it should heal fast. Your sprained ankle is going to bother you longer.” 

Sor Agnes smacked her lips. “I have got no idea what you were doing out there, especially in your condition.” 

Teresa swallowed and begged the sister for a sip of water. Slowly, she drew the linen blanket downwards. Under the rough cloth of the gown they’d wrapped her in, her belly protruded more than ever. Sor Agnes mistook her dawning horror for worry. 

“Don’t trouble yourself, _querida_ ,” she said. “Your baby seems fine. Rest now. You’ll be in your feet in no time. Then you can attend Mass and praise Him for saving you both.” 

“I cannot tell you, truly, how thankful I am,” Teresa said evenly, as the nun got up and closed the door behind her, leaving her alone in the bare room. 

The white-washed walls were only adorned by a crucifix with an agonized Jesus figure, next to an image of Mother Clara wielding the Blessed Sacrament like a weapon against the Saracens. On the tiny bedside table, a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary kept her company. As her gaze settled upon the figurine, who cradled an ill-proportioned infant, Teresa wryly corrected herself: there was still the child she wished to rid herself of. 

“We’re stuck with each other for now,” she said to her swollen stomach, biting her tongue when she realized what she was doing. She did not want to talk to it. She did not want to be settled with it. She did not want to think of it at all. But it was hard to ignore a growing child when there was little else to do. 

She would sleep; she would eat; she would call for someone to help her with the chamber pot. Sometimes, Sor Agnes would offer to pray the rosary with her, or Teresa would idly flick through the Bible on her nightstand. The familiar Latin cadences echoed in her mind, refusing to make sense. This contemplative existence could not have been more different from _La Aguja_ ’s struggle, or from her previous life at Casa Moreno. Teresa resented nearly every minute. She must regain her strength, for an injured partisan would not be of much use. And what use was there for a pregnant woman? 

As long as she stayed under the Poor Clares’ roof, Teresa could not escape that burden. On any other occasion, she would have been grateful for their diligence. 

“Now I’m wondering,” she said to the child, “when they’ll pester me about your father. Some nuns back home, they could have taught me about interrogations. Sor Agnes should take a leaf from their book.” 

She smiled grimly. Her stomach fluttered, as though the baby agreed. 

Perhaps one of the sisters overheard her talking, or it was pure happenstance that Sor Agnes stopped by on that very night. 

“You are much better,” she declared. “And the weather’s not too bad, for December. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t travel. Unless you wish to stay here, of course. Is there someone we should send for? Family? Your husband?” 

The lies would come easy, but Teresa had the pride of generations of de Morenos to fall back on. Though some might consider her behaviour shameful, it would stain her honour more to seek a weaselly coward’s way out. 

“Thank you for your offer, Sor Agnes, and your charity,” she said. 

“My parents are – they died at the hands of the French. There is no husband to send for: the father’s a British officer in Portugal. Still, I have no desire to take Holy Orders when the baby’s born. My sister entered a convent when – after Medina de Rio Seco. I leave the praying to her.” 

Sor Agnes sighed. “I suspected as much. I feared some soldier might have forced you. You wouldn’t be the first woman to get with child from that. It happened to our youngest novice, a sweet girl.” 

She tucked back a wayward curl of Teresa’s hair, the first time she showed any tenderness beyond efficient care and steadfast piety. 

“I pray you, please do not leave and try again. The further along you are, the more dangerous it is. We buried a patient who poisoned herself with pennyroyal tea. There was also a woman that killed herself with a rusty spoon. Thank God, her infant wasn’t still-born, so we baptized him before he died. An ugly affair...” 

Sor Agnes put a liver-spotted hand on Teresa’s arm. “Don’t you have any other kin left?” 

Teresa shrugged. “My uncle lives in Badajoz.” 

The elderly woman beamed at her. “You should ask your uncle to take you in,” Sor Agnes suggested. “Write to your _inglés_ , and he can marry you if – when he comes back. Those English soldiers are heretics, except the Irish, but some have taken Spanish brides.” 

Ignoring the well-intentioned comment about her marriage prospects, Teresa all but sprang from the cot. She swayed a little on her feet: her centre of gravity was changing – another irritating reminder that her body no longer belonged to her alone. She started pacing the narrow room in quick strides, back and forth, back and forth, until Sor Agnes exclaimed: “Stop fidgeting, child! You are making me dizzy!” 

Teresa persuaded, negotiated, cajoled, begged, but she did succeed in squeezing something useful out of her companion. (Later she would tell the baby, with a bark of laughter, that it was rather difficult to question someone whom you bore no real ill will. You couldn’t threaten her with a knife.) 

It was hard to learn anything about the patriotic cause when the nuns took care not to mention war or politics in her hearing. Even the Poor Clares, though, took a lively interest in the fate of the Peninsula. Besides, there were visitors calling at a nunnery every day, from the toothless trader with his donkey-cart, hawking pickled olives and cabbage, to His Grace, the bishop himself. The sisters must have been instructed to keep her from all possible excitement: perhaps they genuinely worried about her delicate condition, or they did not approve of the life Teresa had chosen. Either way, she was sick and tired of worrying about imaginary battles, non-existent campaigns, and potential defeats in her ascetic solitude. 

“You must be fretting about your officer, _pobrecita_ ,” Sor Agnes said, an understanding smile widening her round face and lighting up her beady eyes. Teresa did not disabuse her of the notion. Within minutes, she finally found out about the news that some fugitives had brought from the other side of the mountains. The British and Portuguese Armies were safe in Lisbon, behind heavy fortifications the likes of which none had ever seen – the true reason behind Major Hogan’s secrecy, she assumed. Portugal was suffering terribly, but it had remained free. 

_“¡Gracias a Dios!_ “ Teresa murmured, and gave way to Sor Agnes’ plucking at her sleeve. She lay down again and handed her nurse the heavy, leather-bound volume from the table. “We can read now, if you want.” 

But the older woman had barely begun to recite a couple of verses in a wheezy monotone when Teresa interrupted her with an impatient flick of her hand. “Not that one. Please.” 

She recognized the text, and she did not want to hear about a sinful nation and a desolate country, about cities burned with fire and overthrown by strangers. Nor did she care for the prophet’s promise of deliverance, the stomping boots and the bloodied mantle consumed in flames, the child born unto the people, and the coming glory for the meek of the earth. 

The words took her back to her mother sitting in the study, her lilting voice bringing the Scripture to life, as though it was the latest chapter from funny Fray Gerundio. Those verses belonged to a Christmas Eve in their old home, not on the tongue of a strange woman, droning on during a bleak midwinter’s day in Extremadura. 

Sor Agnes glared. “It’s all Holy Writ, child. What would you deem more suitable?” 

“Deborah’s song, from the Book of Judges,” Teresa replied promptly. It was a petty victory over her care-taker, but she would not rest until the sister agreed. The praise for Jael, wife of Heber, who smote the captain Sisera with a nail and the workman’s hammer, carried her into an uneasy sleep.

Teresa’s last day in Plasencia began at midnight, with Sor Agnes shaking her rudely awake. “Get dressed,” the nun hissed. “We should not be late for Mass, least of all on Christmas Day.” 

By now, Teresa was accustomed to dressing herself in the dark, to dozing fully-clothed and breaking up camp in the middle of the night. The flurry of activity outside, the sound of hushed voices, and the ice-cold night air felt almost like a return to the little war in the mountains. 

For an elderly lady, Sor Agnes was astonishingly quick on her feet. Usually, Teresa would have outrun her easily – her mother used to complain about her mannish gait – but with her ever-shifting balance, it was quite enough to keep pace. The sister’s wooden soles click-clacked on the cloister’s marble tiles as she all but dragged her charge along to the chapel. 

During the service, Teresa gazed blankly at the golden brilliance of the altar and breathed in the fumes of incense, which suddenly made her nauseous. Indifferently, she listened to the good news of great joy and the babe in the manger, rose, stood and kneeled like a wondrous French automaton, and said “Amen”. She noticed the grimy folds of flesh in the priest’s neck when he stretched to elevate the host and chalice. As he turned around and beckoned the Clares to receive the Eucharist, she remained obstinately on her knees. 

Her sins were hers, and hers alone, but the priest would expect her to confess and properly repent. Now that she had graver matters to divulge than childish things, trivial and venial, she refused to unburden her soul. With a slight smile, Teresa remembered her younger sister: María seemed to enjoy the agonies of soul-searching, the spiritual drama worthy of an early martyr, and the attention it brought her to tremble in fear of damnation after stealing pastries from the kitchen or neglecting to feed her canary. 

What would María think of her sister’s deeds, or worse, of Teresa’s lack of penitence? She would not beg forgiveness for disposing of enemy soldiers with her peculiar sort of needlework. Nor would she apologize for falling in love with a pig-headed, gutter-born, overbold Englishman, in spite of herself. Closing her eyes, as though in prayer, she let the chanting of the dismissal and the blessing and the Last Gospel wash over her, and wondered where people like her found grace and truth. 

***

To her surprise, Rosa waited at the gate of the convent, wrapped in a woollen shawl, a basket full of vittels dangling from her scrawny arm, and a bag full of Teresa’s meagre belongings slung over her shoulder. 

“Didn’t they tell you?” the country girl said instead of a greeting. “I was here the whole time. The nuns made me work in the kitchen. Had me scrubbing pots and pans for weeks.” Her full lips pursed in a pretty pout. “Didn’t feel very holy. Cook was a mean ‘un who beat me if I didn’t scrub harder.”

“I didn’t know,” Teresa said, “Are you headed back to my – the men in the sierra?” She folded her hands beneath her breasts, shifting her weight from side to side, the ill-fitting hand-me-down dress clinging to the curve of her stomach. “I cannot go with you.” 

“You’d let me go? Just like that?” Rosita curled a matted lock of black hair round her finger, then let it unwind, and took to chewing on the strand like a nervous horse. “They told me to come with you, to Badajoz.” 

“If you run for it,” Teresa said. “I couldn’t catch up with you now. But you’d be of use while I’m staying with my uncle. I don’t mean just scrubbing pots and pans…” 

The vague promise apparently sufficed for Rosa. Eagerly, she followed Teresa through the streets of Plasencia, in search of a stagecoach that would carry them south. Though the clock of the cathedral struck seven in the morning, the day was still dark and the squares empty. 

Rosa groaned, her teeth chattering in a steady rhythm. “We’ll be all frozen blue afore we get there.” She suddenly sounded like a fearful child. “How far is it? I – I’ve never – Plasencia’s the furthest I been from home.” 

Teresa leaned against the wall of a building, enjoying the waft of warm air and the shimmer of light that streamed through the half-open window above her head.

“It could take us a week in this weather. We’d be faster on a pair of ponies, but we are respectable now: we have to travel by coach. – No, a few days longer. We must take lodgings at an inn here. I should first send word to Capitán Garcia.”

The captain – a former miller – was trustworthy enough. Thanks to his brother, a village priest with a little book-learning, Garcia could read and also write. Teresa had no choice but to rely on him. She’d entrust him with a message for Hogan or any other exploring officer that might find his way out of Portugal, though the reasons for her sudden absence were none of their business. 

Never would she confide in some stranger how much an unborn child had rattled her, nor did she want Richard to hear about it from a go-between. They would both be back in the field sooner or later. Then they could talk. Meanwhile, she made up a sick relative in Badajoz, which was close enough to the truth. If you squinted hard. Once she made sure that Garcia knew what to do, Rosita and she could travel on to her uncle's. 

***

Inside the coach, the air was rank with sweat. Despite the frigid temperatures that turned everyone’s feet to clumps of ice, the passengers stank almost as badly as a billet of soldiers in summer. Strange, how travelling by coach had not seemed quite so disagreeable when Teresa was a girl. She would gladly put up with days or weeks of discomfort if the rattling vehicle took her to the ornate facades of Salamanca or down the Tagus Valley, all the way to Lisbon and the sea. 

Presently, she would have given anything for a sturdy horse. The wheels squeaked shrilly in each curve, and the carriage sent a jolt through her body with every pothole. The baby did not approve. It kicked more firmly than ever, and judging from Teresa’s queasiness, it might be turning somersaults, like a minuscule _gitan_ juggler. 

Rosa had fallen asleep a while back, with the enviable ability of the young to rest anywhere and everywhere. Sometimes, her loose hair touched Teresa’s cheek when the swerving coach pressed them closer together. It reminded Teresa of another carriage ride, up in Galicia, when Richard had first dozed upon her shoulder and she’d secretly enjoyed his closeness. 

She slipped off her black lace glove and toyed with the ring on her left hand. The gold band glittered in the blinding beams of the winter sun that slipped through the blinds once in a while. It fitted her perfectly, although it was not hers. “Antonia & César Moreno, XIX.II.MDCCLXXXI”, the inscription on the inner side read. 

Her mother’s wedding ring was among the few things she’d saved from the wreckage of her home, unwilling to leave it to any other looters that might come after. Her mother’s fingers had already grown a little stiff: the joint cracked loudly when Teresa slipped off the ring. She’d carried it on a chain around her neck or in a pocket of her blouse through the entire war. Surely, her mother would not mind if she used it for a little white lie. 

“Don’t you worry, _señora_ ,” the passenger opposite Teresa said. 

He was a middle-aged wine merchant, rather portly round the middle, who’d talked shop with his equally stout wife for hours until her eyes, too, fluttered shut. His potbelly and reddish nose proclaimed that he was rather fond of his own wares. 

“The roads are very uncomfortable, but you’ll soon be reunited with your family. Your husband will be glad to see you again.” 

“I very much doubt so,” Teresa said, gesturing at her dark dress. A superstitious shiver of fear raced down her spine. Hastily, she crossed two fingers of her right hand in her lap. “My husband passed away. He survived Talavera last summer, but it was the swamp fever that killed him.” 

Her eyes demurely downcast, she accepted the man’s awkward condolences as the fifth person in the carriage chimed in. 

“Should you be travelling alone in your circumstances?” the officer said. His white jacket and breeches were of fine cut and finer cloth, although they had acquired a number of stains from the shabby upholstery. His crimson cuff and collar were barely frayed, with nary a thread hanging loose. 

“I’d be most honoured to offer my protection to the widow of a heroic patriot,” he went on. 

From beneath her lashes, Teresa noticed that his eyes kept straying to her breasts, which had lately increased in size. She nearly snorted before she recalled that a genteel widow would do no such thing. Unfortunately, said widow would not expose him as an armchair soldier, either. 

Teresa had seen plenty of those, in Spanish and British camps alike: preening like peacocks in new uniforms, wasting their pay on cards and women, and dining well while they decreed who was to live and die. If Fate was just, they would die, too. However, most were lucky enough to leverage their connections and get a post as aide-de-camp, thus escaping wholesale slaughter. None of them had protected her or her family. She certainly did not need the dubious patronage of a leering fool. Pity that she could not throw this in his face. 

“I am much obliged, _señor_ ,” she responded, struggling to keep anger as well as amusement at bay. 

“Your offer leaves me speechless. But don’t concern yourself on my behalf: my dear uncle is waiting impatiently for my arrival. You’ll find a much worthier opportunity to contribute to the patriotic cause and shed your blood for Spain.” 

Maybe she was imagining it, but he blanched the tiniest bit at her mention of bloodshed. Satisfied, Teresa shifted in her seat, in search for a comfortable position and an hour or two of rest. Truth be told, she dreaded her arrival in Badajoz, but the matter could be helped. Swaying and bouncing, the coach rumbled on to Cáceres. 

***

The sun was sinking slowly in the sky, half-vanishing behind the looming city walls, as they approached Badajoz at last. Rosa barely kept herself upright in her seat, body sagging with weariness, while Teresa sat ramrod straight and very still. Her hands were folded over her bulging belly, and the twitching of her thumbs belied her seeming quietness. 

To her relief, there were no siege works yet to be seen. Garcia’s informers could be in the wrong, and the French would rather try to capture another border town, like Olivenza with its river crossing. Badajoz stayed in the hands of its Spanish garrison for now, though the roads were swarming with French patrols. 

She’d told herself, a dozen times at least, there was no reason to be anxious about the French sentries at the last crossroads before Badajoz. Why should they deny free passage to the relative of a local notable? How would they know that she rode with the partisans in other parts of Spain? Or that there was a bounty of 200 _pesos_ upon the head of _La Aguja_? Still, Teresa wished that she was safe in her uncle’s house. She carried a knife under her gown, but this was no situation she could escape with a blade, a gun, and a good horse. 

Passing on to the fortified town proved a sore disappointment, in a way. The soldiers peered inside the carriage, but they laughed when they saw the passengers: two wizened clergymen, aged fourscore and upward, and two women. One of the officers, a _sous-lieutenant_ with golden whiskers, apologized to Teresa for the intrusion. 

“ _Cachez-vous un p’tit partisan dedans?_ ” he said in farewell, nodding at her stomach and causing the other men to snicker with laughter. She gave him her most charming smile. “ _Mais oui, monsieur_ ,” she said with a flirtatious wink. The sentries let them drive onwards, to Badajoz. 

Her uncle was less amused than the French officers at her appearance. Don Rafael let her in, offered her a chair and a glass of wine, then told her to explain herself. 

“You will not like the explanation,” Teresa said, and she was right. After listening to her account, he barely spoke three more sentences to her that night. 

“I will not turn you away,” he declared, somewhat stiffly. “You are César’s child, and of my flesh and blood. I loved my brother, even if he raised you in a rather irresponsible manner.” 

Considering that she had been prepared for a ferocious fight, this unexpected retreat was a pleasant surprise, albeit far from a warm welcome to the Casa Moreno. Her uncle’s behaviour mellowed a little when his neighbours, the Reyes, came to call and swallowed the tragic story of Teresa’s widowhood hook, line, and sinker. However, Don Rafael didn’t appear solely grateful for her charade: sometimes, he gave the impression that he was sorry for learning the truth about her unborn child in the first place. 

“If I don’t want to make apologies in church for murdering dozens,” Teresa thought obstinately, “I will certainly not cower before an uncle for delivering one child.”

What did he expect her to do? Sneak away in the middle of the night, give birth in the mountains, and dump a foundling on the doorstep of the nearest nunnery? Sometimes, she wondered why she had not done this after her attempt to cause a miscarriage failed so miserably. 

Teresa hated admitting it, but she was afraid. After Medina de Rio Seco, she thought she’d forgotten what fear felt like. Giving birth would be beyond her control and her command, something she could not defend herself against with a sharpened dagger or a well-primed pistol. If she had to go through with it, she preferred to have her lying-in in a decent bed, with a midwife nearby, not bleeding to death on the dirt floor of a roofless hut. She hadn’t survived years among the partisans to be killed by an infant. 

Even if everything went well with the delivery, the child would not be abandoned in an orphanage. The strange, unwanted, unseen creature did have a certain tenacity, the stubbornness of the born survivor. Teresa honoured a worthy opponent. Richard rarely hinted at whatever he remembered of his childhood in the workhouse, but naught was colder than common charity, as Stefano would have said. If she left the baby to this fate, it would end as a farmhand or maidservant if it was lucky, and as a beggar, thief, or whore if it was not. 

Despite her uncle’s aloof demeanour and the nagging worry about an impending siege, there was no doubt that life at Casa Moreno was comfortable enough. She slept under soft covers, had a maid to provide hot water for a bath, and ate three full meals each day without wondering where the food came from. 

“I’m almost too well cared for,” Teresa thought as her new aunt urged her to eat another bowl of chick pea and bean soup or lamb stew. 

“You must be plump and strong when the baby comes,” Doña Lucia assured her, despite her own lack of experience when it came to birthing children. 

Lucia fussed about her niece – actually her senior in age – like the proverbial mother-hen. In all other regards, she rather reminded Teresa of an overgrown dormouse. Lucia’s large dark eyes stood too close together, leaving little room for her minuscule nose with its rosy tip, which twitched slightly whenever she was agitated. Doña Lucia was agitated a lot. 

In breathless tones, she talked and talked about her nerves and nightmares, now that the French had come after all to dig the first trench and bring the first cannon. She clung to Teresa’s arm, her lower lip trembling as she recounted every horrific account she’d heard from Zaragoza or Gerona.

“Oh, I am so, so sorry,” she said eventually, on the verge of tears. “I forgot what you have been through, _nena_.” Teresa had to offer her a handkerchief, and Lucia sobbed as if she had witnessed the sack of Medina herself. 

In spite of her aunt’s irritating habits, Teresa could not bring herself to despise her altogether. The girl was only a couple of years younger, and she had been spared the worst of the war. Teresa herself felt as though the _guerrilla_ had aged her by at least a decade. Moreover, there were moments – the trail of skirts on the floorboards, a whiff of perfume in the room, the murmured words of the rosary – when she forgot where she was and thought she had her sister back. Though Lucia shared neither María’s sweet disposition nor her former vivaciousness, she had a similar solicitousness, the same penchant for occasional histrionics as well as a deep piety. 

Doña Lucia prayed at length, and with great frequency. Teresa knew that her aunt laid aside her pin money for beeswax candles to devote to Santa Anna and San Isabel: she asked for healthy offspring with each gift. Whenever she looked at her niece, it was with an odd mixture of censure, pity, and envy. 

Lucia giggled, though, when she patted Teresa’s stomach and the baby poked back, and she always had a smile and a precious slice of orange for the Reyes children, whom she dandled on her knees. She was calmest and most sensible when she distracted herself with nursery rhymes or toy-making. Her needle made fine stitches, the most delicate Teresa had ever seen, and she pressed her new companion into sewing tiny dolls for the toddlers that ran about their drawing-room. 

One thing was plain as day: Tía Lucia was the breach in Don Rafael’s defences. If Teresa chose to leave her child behind, his wife would easily be swayed into caring for it as for her own. Yet another reason not to cross her, when she could be of use. 

At other times, Lucia’s fussing and clucking could have tried a saint’s patience. Teresa would escape to church, with Rosa as her unlikely chaperone. Lucia let them go without resistance and made no attempt to join them, as Teresa hinted at a powerful need for private contemplation and the Sacrament of Penance. “I have many things to confess,” she said. Blushing, her young aunt shoved her out of the door.

So she and Rosita walked the sombre streets of Badajoz, the winter even darker in the shadow of fortress and cathedral. Neither their frosty breaths in the air nor the distant rumble of French artillery could dampen Rosa’s spirits. Once Teresa gave her leave to go – ostensibly to purchase pork and trenches on the market – she would dash down the street like a filly that sees green pastures for the first time, delighted to rid herself of her chores for a while. 

Teresa told her, again and again, to avoid lonely alleys and groups of soldiers, even Spanish ones, and demonstrated how to best use a knife from the kitchen drawer. Otherwise, she didn’t mind Rosita’s excursions – quite on the contrary. Although the girl preferred dalliances and gossiping with the townfolk to choosing sausages for dinner, this was exactly what Teresa needed. 

Rosa would flirt with a blacksmith’s apprentice who occasionally helped to shoe cavalry horses, and she’d become fast friends with a housemaid whose first cousin worked as a servant in the general’s quarters. Out of the idle chit-chat that she brought back, Teresa scribbled down every tidbit of useful information and stowed away the scraps of paper in a book from her uncle’s study. 

“Treat all my books with care, _chiquita_ ,” she heard her father say as she took to its pages with a penknife and carved out a hiding place for her notes. 

“I don’t think anyone will miss _The Compass for Navigating Euphuistic Reefs_ ,” she muttered to herself. Neither her stolid uncle nor her silly aunt expressed an urgent interest in the literary reflections of Spain’s Golden Age. Though she had brutally gutted an esteemed poet, her cause was well worth his sacrifice. For now, she’d use her notes to keep track of the garrison’s opinions on the course of the siege. Should they ever be forced to open the gates to the French, why, the book would make an even better repository for intelligence on their enemy’s military strength. 

Don Rafael and his wife would go into conniptions if they were aware of the knowledge stored between those covers. Lucia did as little harm as a mouse, and Teresa’s uncle did not think highly of the _partidas_. “Rabble-rousing peasants,” he called them, “little better than common footpads and highwaymen.” Though not an _afrancesado_ , he was no friend to the British. Rafael de Moreno wanted a peaceful and stable city free of foreign soldiers, a flourishing trade in wool, linen, and leather. He wanted to provide for his household and see his town rise above the dark hours of its warlike history. With Soult’s army _ante portes_ , Teresa saw little chance for that to happen. 

The massive cathedral, resembling a bulwark rather than a place of prayer, beckoned her with its interior that gave shelter from the cold. Teresa’s fingers started to turn stiff, although the baby radiated warmth like a hot brick tied to her body. “It’s rather pleasant now, but it’ll feel dreadful in May, before the child's due,” Teresa thought with an irritated sigh, “and much heavier too.” Inside the cathedral, she took a minute to enjoy the warmer air, though it was stale and smelled of candle wax and incense. 

Aimlessly, she wandered the dim vault of the nave, passing a few lone believers in the side chapels. Her echoing steps took her back to a Christmas spent in Extremadura, years ago: her mother had brought her and María to this very church, guiding a girl on each hand, and letting them buy votary candles for the Virgin and Santa Teresa. “Look, there’s my patron saint!” _mamá_ exclaimed and pointed at a humble figure of San Antonio, next to the reliquaries. Both her girls had vied for the honour of leaving him a small coin. 

Teresa smiled to herself. Her wistful expression grew sunnier as she found the statue again, in its old place behind the column, still surrounded by candle stumps and modest gifts, left for things lost and found. Her cheerfulness erupted in a volley of inappropriate laughter when she picked up some of the coins: Portuguese mint, all of them, donated to the patron of the realm where the French invasion had stopped before the Lines of Torres Vedras. 

The child joined in her merriment. It must have been dancing in there, or jumping up and down, as though it shared her excited mood. “Perhaps she will like music, like my mother,” Teresa thought, and sat down abruptly in the nearest pew. 

Strange how it had become “she”, in the space of a heartbeat. Of course, it could as well be a boy. Would he have his father’s fair hair, or favour her family’s dark looks? Would a girl share Teresa’s sharp features, or Richard’s square chin and broader nose? Suddenly, she could not wait to see that face, if only to satisfy her curiosity and search for the resemblance to everyone she’d loved and lost. 

By her next Christmas in Badajoz, she would find out. Her child would be long born and baptized, and Teresa would have made a full recovery, bouncing a baby in her lap. The siege could be over, one way or the other, Richard could be back from Lisbon, and the tides of war could turn. When the town’s children ran to gaze at the scenes from the Nativity in the cathedral and all the windows lit up again with flickering oil lamps for _Nochebuena_ , she would know what to do. A lot could happen until another Christmas and the turn of the year. 

Drawing a deep breath, Teresa smoothed her skirts and stood up. “Time to go home,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> One quick comment on the destruction of Almeida that's briefly mentioned at the end of part iii: 
> 
> In August 1810, the fortress was under siege from Marshal Masséna's army since it was on a major road from Ciudad Rodrigo to Lisbon. But the siege was unexpectedly cut short because an accident - probably a French shell igniting a spilled powder trail - blew up half the fortifications. In _Sharpe's Gold_ , Bernard Cornwell offers a different - and more creative - explanation for that explosion. However, incorporating that into my story would have spoiled my recipient for the novel, against their express wishes. Also, since book!Teresa has a somewhat bigger role in _Sharpe's Gold_ , trying to get stuff from it into TV!canon would have hurt my brain. :) So, for the purposes of this fic, I'll go with the forthright historical account of what happened to Almeida, despite my fascination with things that go boom.


End file.
